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It's become a politicized issue, and as such, the media has created a narrative of 2 sides and a "debate." Take the 97% and put it into a different context and

by loganu 11y ago

It's become a politicized issue, and as such, the media has created a narrative of 2 sides and a "debate." Take the 97% and put it into a different context and it makes the situation seem absolutely ludicrous. If you had a sore stomach, and asked 2 groups of people to help you figure out why, would you trust the diagnosis from a group with 100 world-class doctors, surgeons, dieticians, etc... or 100 random people? When the random people say "Ya, but the doctor's don't know anything"... why would you believe them? We've got global consensus from the leading experts in a dozen or so related fields, all pointing to the same thing. I trust the people that landed on the moon and can launch satellites to space to give me better information about the Earth's macro trends than the guy next door that uses his bible and the cold weather last week as his evidence of a trend.

Zuider 11y ago
>If you had a sore stomach, and asked 2 groups of people to help you figure out why, would you trust the diagnosis from a group with 100 world-class doctors, surgeons, dieticians, etc... or 100 random people? Not unless two of those 100 random individuals were Barry Marshall and Robin Warren and the stomach pain was due to a peptic ulcer. https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Barry_Marshall https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Barry_Marshall "Marshall and Robin Warren showed that the bacterium Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) is the cause of most peptic ulcers, reversing decades of medical doctrine holding that ulcers were caused by stress, spicy foods, and too much acid." The point being that a reasonable belief long held by experts was shown to be false by careful scientific investigation. That said, I don't find this kind of meta-rhetoric helpful as it serves only to steer attention away from the pertinent matter at hand and to shut down discussion.
- loganu 11y ago
  I get what you're saying, but Marshall was a doctor. He'd be in the 3% of the group of informed scientists that are working to figure out this scenario. My point is that the general public's opinion and perception of the issue shouldn't carry as much weight as the experts.
scarmig 11y ago
Your medical example has happened before. And, it gives us the answer! People will believe the people who have better access to the media, which, in this case, was tobacco companies hiring hacks to push a certain line of evidence demanding that the media teach the debate and give equal time. And as a result we got hundreds of thousands of excess deaths. Ironically, many of the same tobacco-cancer link deniers are now working in the service of the global warming denialist bloc. I guess oil barons pay better than southern planters.
CONTRARlAN 11y ago
Apparently on HN we can now be condescending, insulting, narrow-minded, and straw-man those with whom we disagree with, so long as we're aligned with conventional wisdom.
- loganu 11y ago
  Apologies to anyone basing their beliefs on religious faith or personal experience. That's your choice, and unfair for me to judge. As for straw man, I don't think that's technically correct, but it's a hard point to make without analogy. Conventional wisdom is (I believe the majority of people are under the impression) that there's actually a scientific debate about this, and that the scientists and climatologists are all bickering about the causes. That's not the case, but we're largely ignoring that because the media and a few opposing scientists are casting doubt.

by loganu 11y ago

Zuider 11y ago

>If you had a sore stomach, and asked 2 groups of people to help you figure out why, would you trust the diagnosis from a group with 100 world-class doctors, surgeons, dieticians, etc... or 100 random people? Not unless two of those 100 random individuals were Barry Marshall and Robin Warren and the stomach pain was due to a peptic ulcer. https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Barry_Marshall https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Barry_Marshall "Marshall and Robin Warren showed that the bacterium Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) is the cause of most peptic ulcers, reversing decades of medical doctrine holding that ulcers were caused by stress, spicy foods, and too much acid." The point being that a reasonable belief long held by experts was shown to be false by careful scientific investigation. That said, I don't find this kind of meta-rhetoric helpful as it serves only to steer attention away from the pertinent matter at hand and to shut down discussion.

loganu 11y ago
I get what you're saying, but Marshall was a doctor. He'd be in the 3% of the group of informed scientists that are working to figure out this scenario. My point is that the general public's opinion and perception of the issue shouldn't carry as much weight as the experts.

scarmig 11y ago

Your medical example has happened before. And, it gives us the answer! People will believe the people who have better access to the media, which, in this case, was tobacco companies hiring hacks to push a certain line of evidence demanding that the media teach the debate and give equal time. And as a result we got hundreds of thousands of excess deaths. Ironically, many of the same tobacco-cancer link deniers are now working in the service of the global warming denialist bloc. I guess oil barons pay better than southern planters.

CONTRARlAN 11y ago

Apparently on HN we can now be condescending, insulting, narrow-minded, and straw-man those with whom we disagree with, so long as we're aligned with conventional wisdom.

loganu 11y ago
Apologies to anyone basing their beliefs on religious faith or personal experience. That's your choice, and unfair for me to judge. As for straw man, I don't think that's technically correct, but it's a hard point to make without analogy. Conventional wisdom is (I believe the majority of people are under the impression) that there's actually a scientific debate about this, and that the scientists and climatologists are all bickering about the causes. That's not the case, but we're largely ignoring that because the media and a few opposing scientists are casting doubt.