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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On December 17 2016 03:48 Mohdoo wrote:
You are creating hypotheticals that don't relate at all to what I'm talking about.
My point is: When 98% agree, it is for a good reason and it can be believed.
And are 98% of people correct 100% of the time?
As I said, and I don't think we disagree: they are most likely correct, but it's not bad to be skeptical.
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On December 17 2016 03:47 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2016 03:34 Karis Vas Ryaar wrote:On December 17 2016 03:30 LegalLord wrote:On December 17 2016 03:23 Karis Vas Ryaar wrote:On December 17 2016 03:15 LegalLord wrote:On December 17 2016 03:03 Mohdoo wrote:On December 17 2016 02:57 LegalLord wrote:On December 17 2016 02:38 Thieving Magpie wrote:On December 17 2016 02:27 LegalLord wrote:On December 17 2016 02:25 Thieving Magpie wrote:
[quote]
I don't know if claiming news media that denies science and scientists can be considered real news.
Do scientists ever bullshit? Is scientific consensus ever bullshit, especially on political issues? The skepticism is usually wrong but absolutely warranted. Scientific journals are actually heavily tested and their work reviewed and re-reviewed constantly. Disagreeing with the current consensus without running your own test on the disagreed upon journal is nothing but intentional misleading of your reader base. If you think a journal is wrong--prove it. Show tests, show the math, show the proof that the test was wrong. Then have your test get published in a scientific journal to also be equally vetted. Do scientists ever have their judgment clouded by their own bias in favor of funding for their own work? Do they ever make hasty conclusions that are hard to refute because the few people who are capable of doing so have the same conflicts of interest as the first? Do they ever make imprecise and unknowable predictions about the future for which it's really hard to know if an "educated guess" is based on good science or politicized? Do they ever just have such a poor understanding of the political aspects of their proposals that they just miss the mark entirely? Do they ever do experiments that are hard to replicate because of money and expertise barriers? I'm generally not a "science skeptic" but damn, don't give them more credit than they deserve. They are far from unbiased arbiters of truth, as is the implication here with the emphasis on idolizing "peer-review" as if it gets rid of being wrong. All of the things you listed are extremely risky things to do because of how much street cred people get for proving other people's shit wrong. Once you publish, you are insanely vulnerable. I have been a part of many different investigations that never got published because it was still technically possible we were too vulnerable to a certain avenue. In reality, a lot of stuff *could* be likely published but is not because the consequences of being wrong are too great. It is really, really bad to have to withdraw a paper. It is borderline career ending. Note: This only applies to western research. Chinese research littered with trash and none of this applies to the Chinese scientific community. Edit: Except for when you said "Do they ever do experiments that are hard to replicate because of money and expertise barriers?" Being the only person to make a certain type of spectrometer, and then publishing working that uses it, is not necessarily a bad thing. Papers where someone is the first to do a type of detection always comes with lots of caution and the reason for believing the new spectroscopy method are all clearly laid out. People are like "Yo, this shit is new and wild, but here's why I'm pretty sure it is right." Who is vulnerable, and how? The biggest existential crisis for most scientists is that they won't get more money to do their work. If they're being funded to consistently lie and/or mislead with partial truths that simply cannot be painted as fabrications (no one gets punished for what can be a "misdirection" done in good faith), are they more vulnerable to pissing off their benefactors or to some guys proving that they are kinda-sorta-maybe wrong? Would Google Labs publish something that, for example, proves that Google's approach to search is fundamentally flawed and will not scale to the web in 10 years, with little in the way of recourse? If they would not, do you suspect political, rather than academic, motives for doing so? And do you consider Google Labs researchers to be real scientists, given both their political motives and the fact that they genuinely have important scientific contributions? well first of all theres a difference between hard and soft sciences. There is a real percieved problem in terms of funding and raising questions about how they may shape the data. I think most scientists wouldn't willingly post fake data just because it makes there backer look bad but it may affect the study in other ways. There's a reason scientists are always trying to replicate experiments and verify claims and for the most part science is eventually self correcting if a mistake happens. Similarly, I am more skeptical of economics, history, and the like, softer science, than I am of mathematics, physics, engineering, chemistry, and biology, harder science. Few people would contest that. Similarly, the former has less recourse in the way of "replicating experiments" since they mostly are forced to rely on historical data and micro-examples. Even the latter can be politicized though. Say that a certain physics lab is funded by the contribution of Lockheed Martin doing R&D work on the stealth aspect of their F-35 jet. Do you think said physicist might at least subconsciously be a little biased towards giving results that give LM the perception they want of the feasibility of the stealth functionality. And it doesn't even have to be wrong - it could just be one of those frequent cases where not all the conditions apply as necessary to make the experiments work as needed. while yeah but that's where other scientists come in. Obviously people have subconscious beliefs that can interfere. that situations weird because it would obviously be classified and not available for general people to review. at the end of the day though you still want accurate science because if you sell a plane that doesn't work it's going to negatively affect your reputation. your companies reputation, and the bottom line. But yeah those problems always slip through, see Samsung's exploding phone. the media also might make it seem worse than it is because they tend to make a big deal about revolutionary discoveries and then not make a big deal about when it's corrected or scientists saying wait til we can verify this. see the FTL particles a couple years a go which later was found to just be a bad sensor. What if the other scientists are also bought off? Also, a physicist might conclude something like "optical properties of material X suggest that they may be undetectable by Y means" which may or may not be completely accurate, but the assertion would be favorable for LM. And that's related, but it's hard to pin that as fabrication when the real question of interest is not Material X and Tracker Y but more so "will the Russian S-400 system be able to track and target F-35 jets" which is what people actually care about and which people might use the physicist's word to answer, even though it simply doesn't work that well. And how long will it take before someone can actually test that in real combat scenarios?
How people use science publications is not the fault of the scientists or the scientific method.
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On December 17 2016 03:51 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2016 03:48 Mohdoo wrote:
You are creating hypotheticals that don't relate at all to what I'm talking about.
My point is: When 98% agree, it is for a good reason and it can be believed. And are 98% of people correct 100% of the time? As I said, and I don't think we disagree: they are most likely correct, but it's not bad to be skeptical.
Scientists are skeptical. It is easier to disprove another scientist (getting you money and grants) than it is to reinvent the field. Scientists are motivated to prove each other wrong.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On December 17 2016 03:48 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2016 03:33 LegalLord wrote:On December 17 2016 03:27 Thieving Magpie wrote:On December 17 2016 02:57 LegalLord wrote:On December 17 2016 02:38 Thieving Magpie wrote:On December 17 2016 02:27 LegalLord wrote:On December 17 2016 02:25 Thieving Magpie wrote:On December 17 2016 01:57 xDaunt wrote:On December 17 2016 01:45 Acrofales wrote:On December 17 2016 01:29 xDaunt wrote:[quote] Source. We'll have to wait and see what Facebook actually does, but it is becoming pretty clear that these major tech platforms (particularly Twitter) are aligning themselves with the Left. I tend to think that this is going to be a mistake long term. Pretty sure anti-fake-news is not left or right, unless you are willing to concede that reality has a liberal bias (mainly because conservatives have taken pants-on-heads anti-science stances on a number of issues ranging from climate change to trickle-down economics)? But platforms that people consider important sources of information (although why people think Facebook is a good source of news is beyond me) should take care of the information they are providing. They either shut down their "sponsored links", or they curate it, because they are the ones who are responsible for what shows up on their site. And if that is stuff like "Pope Francis says Hillary is devilspawn" (or whatever the fake headline along those lines was), then that is (partially) their responsibility. I don't think that anyone is going to disagree with the proposition that the truly fake news (ie outright making shit up) is a problem. However, there are two problems with the Left's current attack on fake news. The first is that the breadth of the attack encompasses not just true fake news sites but also conservative media as well. The second problem is that left wing sites aren't receiving the same scrutiny and attention as the right wing analogs. For these reasons, the war on fake news looks very much like an excuse to wage an information war in the name of partisanship. We have to wait and see what Facebook actually does, but if it goes down the same path that Twitter has, it will be a real problem. I don't know if claiming news media that denies science and scientists can be considered real news. Do scientists ever bullshit? Is scientific consensus ever bullshit, especially on political issues? The skepticism is usually wrong but absolutely warranted. Scientific journals are actually heavily tested and their work reviewed and re-reviewed constantly. Disagreeing with the current consensus without running your own test on the disagreed upon journal is nothing but intentional misleading of your reader base. If you think a journal is wrong--prove it. Show tests, show the math, show the proof that the test was wrong. Then have your test get published in a scientific journal to also be equally vetted. Do scientists ever have their judgment clouded by their own bias in favor of funding for their own work? Do they ever make hasty conclusions that are hard to refute because the few people who are capable of doing so have the same conflicts of interest as the first? Do they ever make imprecise and unknowable predictions about the future for which it's really hard to know if an "educated guess" is based on good science or politicized? Do they ever just have such a poor understanding of the political aspects of their proposals that they just miss the mark entirely? Do they ever do experiments that are hard to replicate because of money and expertise barriers? I'm generally not a "science skeptic" but damn, don't give them more credit than they deserve. They are far from unbiased arbiters of truth, as is the implication here with the emphasis on idolizing "peer-review" as if it gets rid of being wrong. When a science journal is published it literally walks you through how they got to that conclusion. The reason it is posted that way is so that people can either replicate it or find a mistake in it. Anyone can do it. That means an american liberal can be tested by a russian conservative and if the russian finds mistakes, he can publish and get mucho rewards for moving the field forward. And if a former warlord in africa also finds mistakes in the conservative russian he can publish that as well; gaining similar praise among his peers. Praise from peers is one of the biggest ways scientists get funding ie because they are famous. Scientists are literally financially incentivized to prove each other wrong. Again, this is idolizing an imperfect "peer review" process that doesn't actually get rid of being wrong. If I have, say, a large particle collider I will make sure to double-check CERN and the LHC results for accuracy. I'll also make sure that if some study from the ISS comes in and says one thing or other, that I will have my own independent space station on which I can verify the accuracy of their work. I'll make sure to do that. CERN is actually a really bad example for this. It is set up with so many competing teams that if one group were to publish something using bad data, it would actually be caught out really quickly.
Say the device itself is faulty, as with that FTL neutrino as we had a few years back?
The point here isn't that we shouldn't trust them - it's that you should always keep some degree of skepticism ready and that no, you aren't a moron for not unquestioningly believing everything scientists say to be true.
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On December 17 2016 03:51 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2016 03:48 Mohdoo wrote:
You are creating hypotheticals that don't relate at all to what I'm talking about.
My point is: When 98% agree, it is for a good reason and it can be believed. And are 98% of people correct 100% of the time? As I said, and I don't think we disagree: they are most likely correct, but it's not bad to be skeptical.
They don't need to be correct 100% of the time. You can never know something is 100% correct and I'm not going to get into a bullshit semantics argument about knowable truths.
At the end of the day, scientific consensus has the highest percent chance of being accurate and is the best shot at acting appropriately. Asking if it is correct 100% of the time is missing the point because it can be the most reasonable decision to make 100% of the time without being right 100% of the time.
So, sure, be skeptical. But don't hesitate to act on something that has 98% confidence. It all comes down to what you actually do.
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LegalLord, while I think the problems you raise are valid and apply to skepticism of individual publications, the problem with applying that mindset to skepticism toward the scientific consensus on climate change is that it doesn't really scale to such a large body of research over a long period of time.
Do scientists act in a bad-faith way to maintain their funding? Yes. Do scientists make mistakes (intentionally or unintentionally) that results in bad data? It happens. But "scientific consensus" isn't built on individual publications. It's built on a large body of work over a long period of time. While the likelihood of a particular publication being biased in some way based on the individual situation of the publishing scientist is moderately likely, the probability of many publications being so biased over a large period of time in a way that remains internally consistent among all of them without someone in the community being able to smell the bullshit before a "consensus" is developed is actually pretty damn small.
Also, lets be real here: if you think most scientific skeptics are actually putting that much thought into their skepticism, you're giving them way too much fucking credit.
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On December 17 2016 03:53 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2016 03:48 Acrofales wrote:On December 17 2016 03:33 LegalLord wrote:On December 17 2016 03:27 Thieving Magpie wrote:On December 17 2016 02:57 LegalLord wrote:On December 17 2016 02:38 Thieving Magpie wrote:On December 17 2016 02:27 LegalLord wrote:On December 17 2016 02:25 Thieving Magpie wrote:On December 17 2016 01:57 xDaunt wrote:On December 17 2016 01:45 Acrofales wrote:
[quote]
Pretty sure anti-fake-news is not left or right, unless you are willing to concede that reality has a liberal bias (mainly because conservatives have taken pants-on-heads anti-science stances on a number of issues ranging from climate change to trickle-down economics)?
But platforms that people consider important sources of information (although why people think Facebook is a good source of news is beyond me) should take care of the information they are providing. They either shut down their "sponsored links", or they curate it, because they are the ones who are responsible for what shows up on their site. And if that is stuff like "Pope Francis says Hillary is devilspawn" (or whatever the fake headline along those lines was), then that is (partially) their responsibility. I don't think that anyone is going to disagree with the proposition that the truly fake news (ie outright making shit up) is a problem. However, there are two problems with the Left's current attack on fake news. The first is that the breadth of the attack encompasses not just true fake news sites but also conservative media as well. The second problem is that left wing sites aren't receiving the same scrutiny and attention as the right wing analogs. For these reasons, the war on fake news looks very much like an excuse to wage an information war in the name of partisanship. We have to wait and see what Facebook actually does, but if it goes down the same path that Twitter has, it will be a real problem. I don't know if claiming news media that denies science and scientists can be considered real news. Do scientists ever bullshit? Is scientific consensus ever bullshit, especially on political issues? The skepticism is usually wrong but absolutely warranted. Scientific journals are actually heavily tested and their work reviewed and re-reviewed constantly. Disagreeing with the current consensus without running your own test on the disagreed upon journal is nothing but intentional misleading of your reader base. If you think a journal is wrong--prove it. Show tests, show the math, show the proof that the test was wrong. Then have your test get published in a scientific journal to also be equally vetted. Do scientists ever have their judgment clouded by their own bias in favor of funding for their own work? Do they ever make hasty conclusions that are hard to refute because the few people who are capable of doing so have the same conflicts of interest as the first? Do they ever make imprecise and unknowable predictions about the future for which it's really hard to know if an "educated guess" is based on good science or politicized? Do they ever just have such a poor understanding of the political aspects of their proposals that they just miss the mark entirely? Do they ever do experiments that are hard to replicate because of money and expertise barriers? I'm generally not a "science skeptic" but damn, don't give them more credit than they deserve. They are far from unbiased arbiters of truth, as is the implication here with the emphasis on idolizing "peer-review" as if it gets rid of being wrong. When a science journal is published it literally walks you through how they got to that conclusion. The reason it is posted that way is so that people can either replicate it or find a mistake in it. Anyone can do it. That means an american liberal can be tested by a russian conservative and if the russian finds mistakes, he can publish and get mucho rewards for moving the field forward. And if a former warlord in africa also finds mistakes in the conservative russian he can publish that as well; gaining similar praise among his peers. Praise from peers is one of the biggest ways scientists get funding ie because they are famous. Scientists are literally financially incentivized to prove each other wrong. Again, this is idolizing an imperfect "peer review" process that doesn't actually get rid of being wrong. If I have, say, a large particle collider I will make sure to double-check CERN and the LHC results for accuracy. I'll also make sure that if some study from the ISS comes in and says one thing or other, that I will have my own independent space station on which I can verify the accuracy of their work. I'll make sure to do that. CERN is actually a really bad example for this. It is set up with so many competing teams that if one group were to publish something using bad data, it would actually be caught out really quickly. Say the device itself is faulty, as with that FTL neutrino as we had a few years back? The point here isn't that we shouldn't trust them - it's that you should always keep some degree of skepticism ready and that no, you aren't a moron for not unquestioningly believing everything scientists say to be true.
well with the FTL incident scientists at the time were sayaing that based on our understanding of physics at the time it was likely to just be an error and they needed to test it to see if it was or not. so Sceintists were the ones being skeptical of it.
Climate change is like evolution. if someone were to prove it wrong properly they'd win every award and scientists would immediately start examining why they were wrong. the problem is the people arguing against it make points that are either wrong, irrelevant or easily explained as to why that's not proof.
now it is possible that something could come along that could fundamentally alter our understanding of science but such a claim would need pretty strong evidence and until that should be seen with skepticism.
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On December 17 2016 03:53 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2016 03:48 Acrofales wrote:On December 17 2016 03:33 LegalLord wrote:On December 17 2016 03:27 Thieving Magpie wrote:On December 17 2016 02:57 LegalLord wrote:On December 17 2016 02:38 Thieving Magpie wrote:On December 17 2016 02:27 LegalLord wrote:On December 17 2016 02:25 Thieving Magpie wrote:On December 17 2016 01:57 xDaunt wrote:On December 17 2016 01:45 Acrofales wrote:
[quote]
Pretty sure anti-fake-news is not left or right, unless you are willing to concede that reality has a liberal bias (mainly because conservatives have taken pants-on-heads anti-science stances on a number of issues ranging from climate change to trickle-down economics)?
But platforms that people consider important sources of information (although why people think Facebook is a good source of news is beyond me) should take care of the information they are providing. They either shut down their "sponsored links", or they curate it, because they are the ones who are responsible for what shows up on their site. And if that is stuff like "Pope Francis says Hillary is devilspawn" (or whatever the fake headline along those lines was), then that is (partially) their responsibility. I don't think that anyone is going to disagree with the proposition that the truly fake news (ie outright making shit up) is a problem. However, there are two problems with the Left's current attack on fake news. The first is that the breadth of the attack encompasses not just true fake news sites but also conservative media as well. The second problem is that left wing sites aren't receiving the same scrutiny and attention as the right wing analogs. For these reasons, the war on fake news looks very much like an excuse to wage an information war in the name of partisanship. We have to wait and see what Facebook actually does, but if it goes down the same path that Twitter has, it will be a real problem. I don't know if claiming news media that denies science and scientists can be considered real news. Do scientists ever bullshit? Is scientific consensus ever bullshit, especially on political issues? The skepticism is usually wrong but absolutely warranted. Scientific journals are actually heavily tested and their work reviewed and re-reviewed constantly. Disagreeing with the current consensus without running your own test on the disagreed upon journal is nothing but intentional misleading of your reader base. If you think a journal is wrong--prove it. Show tests, show the math, show the proof that the test was wrong. Then have your test get published in a scientific journal to also be equally vetted. Do scientists ever have their judgment clouded by their own bias in favor of funding for their own work? Do they ever make hasty conclusions that are hard to refute because the few people who are capable of doing so have the same conflicts of interest as the first? Do they ever make imprecise and unknowable predictions about the future for which it's really hard to know if an "educated guess" is based on good science or politicized? Do they ever just have such a poor understanding of the political aspects of their proposals that they just miss the mark entirely? Do they ever do experiments that are hard to replicate because of money and expertise barriers? I'm generally not a "science skeptic" but damn, don't give them more credit than they deserve. They are far from unbiased arbiters of truth, as is the implication here with the emphasis on idolizing "peer-review" as if it gets rid of being wrong. When a science journal is published it literally walks you through how they got to that conclusion. The reason it is posted that way is so that people can either replicate it or find a mistake in it. Anyone can do it. That means an american liberal can be tested by a russian conservative and if the russian finds mistakes, he can publish and get mucho rewards for moving the field forward. And if a former warlord in africa also finds mistakes in the conservative russian he can publish that as well; gaining similar praise among his peers. Praise from peers is one of the biggest ways scientists get funding ie because they are famous. Scientists are literally financially incentivized to prove each other wrong. Again, this is idolizing an imperfect "peer review" process that doesn't actually get rid of being wrong. If I have, say, a large particle collider I will make sure to double-check CERN and the LHC results for accuracy. I'll also make sure that if some study from the ISS comes in and says one thing or other, that I will have my own independent space station on which I can verify the accuracy of their work. I'll make sure to do that. CERN is actually a really bad example for this. It is set up with so many competing teams that if one group were to publish something using bad data, it would actually be caught out really quickly. Say the device itself is faulty, as with that FTL neutrino as we had a few years back? The point here isn't that we shouldn't trust them - it's that you should always keep some degree of skepticism ready and that no, you aren't a moron for not unquestioningly believing everything scientists say to be true.
All CERN does is speed particles up to ridiculous speeds and then make them smash into one another. One of the sensors might indeed be faulty, but that's why there's multiple redundancy within CERN itself...
Building a second CERN would not do much except add more of the same sensors.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On December 17 2016 03:54 TheYango wrote:
LegalLord, while I think the problems you raise are valid and apply to skepticism of individual publications, the problem with applying that mindset to skepticism toward the scientific consensus on climate change is that it doesn't really scale to such a large body of research over a long period of time.
Do scientists act in a bad-faith way to maintain their funding? Yes. It happens. But "scientific consensus" isn't built on individual publications. It's built on a large body of work over a long period of time. While the likelihood of a particular publication being biased in some way based on the individual situation of the publishing scientist is moderately likely, the probability of many publications being so biased over a large period of time in a way that remains internally consistent among all of them without someone in the community being able to smell the bullshit before a "consensus" is developed is actually pretty damn small.
Also, lets be real here: if you think most scientific skeptics are actually putting that much thought into their skepticism, you're giving them way too much fucking credit.
I'm not one of the climate skeptics here. I have, multiple times, expressed that I see the Paris Accords as a valuable step forward and we should enforce them in full. Nor do I disagree with the general consensus of the fact that climate change is real, significant, and human-induced.
What I am opposing, however, is the idea that just because "scientists" say it is so that it must be so. And frankly, when it comes to matters of policy, scientists are often remarkably short-sighted and self-interested. Not all of them, but it's enough to be a valid stereotype. Yes, there are plenty of idiots who are opposing climate change for ultimately invalid reasons, people seem to have a problem with the idea of opposing climate change regulation as anti-science and any form of skepticism of scientists as anti-science. That is completely invalid and in fact contrary to what the scientific method asks for, which is definitely not "blind faith in science."
The question of "climate change policy" is one that has to answer questions of when do we need to act, how much do we need to do, and what should we do about those who are harmed by climate change policy? Citing scientists as unbiased arbiters of the truth is simply short-sighted for that purpose. Their opinion is valuable there, but far from infallible.
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On December 17 2016 03:53 LegalLord wrote:
Say the device itself is faulty, as with that FTL neutrino as we had a few years back?
The point here isn't that we shouldn't trust them - it's that you should always keep some degree of skepticism ready and that no, you aren't a moron for not unquestioningly believing everything scientists say to be true.
The researchers never expressed certainty in the neutrino speed. They never, ever expressed certainty. If anything, the neutrino experiment is a glowing example of the existing self-skepticism found in the scientific community. Saying "data indicates" is like saying "this is maybe sorta true, possibly."
On December 17 2016 04:02 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2016 03:54 TheYango wrote:
LegalLord, while I think the problems you raise are valid and apply to skepticism of individual publications, the problem with applying that mindset to skepticism toward the scientific consensus on climate change is that it doesn't really scale to such a large body of research over a long period of time.
Do scientists act in a bad-faith way to maintain their funding? Yes. It happens. But "scientific consensus" isn't built on individual publications. It's built on a large body of work over a long period of time. While the likelihood of a particular publication being biased in some way based on the individual situation of the publishing scientist is moderately likely, the probability of many publications being so biased over a large period of time in a way that remains internally consistent among all of them without someone in the community being able to smell the bullshit before a "consensus" is developed is actually pretty damn small.
Also, lets be real here: if you think most scientific skeptics are actually putting that much thought into their skepticism, you're giving them way too much fucking credit. I'm not one of the climate skeptics here. I have, multiple times, expressed that I see the Paris Accords as a valuable step forward and we should enforce them in full. Nor do I disagree with the general consensus of the fact that climate change is real, significant, and human-induced. What I am opposing, however, is the idea that just because "scientists" say it is so that it must be so.
No one is saying that. However, by design, the scientific method has the highest percent chance of being accurate and will always be the perspective that should be acted on.
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On December 17 2016 04:02 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2016 03:54 TheYango wrote:
LegalLord, while I think the problems you raise are valid and apply to skepticism of individual publications, the problem with applying that mindset to skepticism toward the scientific consensus on climate change is that it doesn't really scale to such a large body of research over a long period of time.
Do scientists act in a bad-faith way to maintain their funding? Yes. It happens. But "scientific consensus" isn't built on individual publications. It's built on a large body of work over a long period of time. While the likelihood of a particular publication being biased in some way based on the individual situation of the publishing scientist is moderately likely, the probability of many publications being so biased over a large period of time in a way that remains internally consistent among all of them without someone in the community being able to smell the bullshit before a "consensus" is developed is actually pretty damn small.
Also, lets be real here: if you think most scientific skeptics are actually putting that much thought into their skepticism, you're giving them way too much fucking credit. I'm not one of the climate skeptics here. I have, multiple times, expressed that I see the Paris Accords as a valuable step forward and we should enforce them in full. Nor do I disagree with the general consensus of the fact that climate change is real, significant, and human-induced. What I am opposing, however, is the idea that just because "scientists" say it is so that it must be so. And frankly, when it comes to matters of policy, scientists are often remarkably short-sighted and self-interested. Not all of them, but it's enough to be a valid stereotype. Yes, there are plenty of idiots who are opposing climate change for ultimately invalid reasons, people seem to have a problem with the idea of opposing climate change regulation as anti-science and any form of skepticism of scientists as anti-science. That is completely invalid and in fact contrary to what the scientific method asks for, which is definitely not "blind faith in science." The question of "climate change policy" is one that has to answer questions of when do we need to act, how much do we need to do, and what should we do about those who are harmed by climate change policy? Citing scientists as unbiased arbiters of the truth is simply short-sighted for that purpose. Their opinion is valuable there, but far from infallible.
Science =/= Scientists. You don't make policy based on what a scientist tells you. You base it on the papers on the topic or published works on the topic.
When a news source suggests that a publication is wrong without showing how that publication is wrong--that is anti science as what the news source should show is "this is what the publication says" followed by "this is what another publication on the same topic says" show the differences, show the similarities. This whole thing was brought up because of the notion that there are (usually conservative) news media that goes on talking about how science claims can be wrong without actually walking people through what the journal publication says.
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On December 17 2016 03:51 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2016 03:48 Mohdoo wrote:
You are creating hypotheticals that don't relate at all to what I'm talking about.
My point is: When 98% agree, it is for a good reason and it can be believed. And are 98% of people correct 100% of the time? As I said, and I don't think we disagree: they are most likely correct, but it's not bad to be skeptical.
History is littered with scientific consensuses that have been proven wrong. I'm not necessarily saying that manmade global warming climate skeptics are correct, but the rote dismissal of their positions is uncalled for. And the real issue is the McCarthyist attitude of the current climate change consensus. This apparently isn't an issue where reasonable disagreement or critique is allowed. Oh no, the skeptics all wind up on blacklists of various types, in addition to random threats of imprisonment for heresy.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On December 17 2016 04:08 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2016 03:51 LegalLord wrote:On December 17 2016 03:48 Mohdoo wrote:
You are creating hypotheticals that don't relate at all to what I'm talking about.
My point is: When 98% agree, it is for a good reason and it can be believed. And are 98% of people correct 100% of the time? As I said, and I don't think we disagree: they are most likely correct, but it's not bad to be skeptical. History is littered with scientific consensuses that have been proven wrong. I'm not necessarily saying that manmade global warming climate skeptics are correct, but the rote dismissal of their positions is uncalled for. And the real issue is the McCarthyist attitude of the current climate change consensus. This apparently isn't an issue where reasonable disagreement or critique is allowed. Oh no, the skeptics all wind up on blacklists of various types, in addition to random threats of imprisonment for heresy.
There we go. That's the issue.
Other than that we're basically talking around in circles and using the "label and dismiss" method that I have previously talked a lot about.
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On December 17 2016 04:07 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2016 04:02 LegalLord wrote:On December 17 2016 03:54 TheYango wrote:
LegalLord, while I think the problems you raise are valid and apply to skepticism of individual publications, the problem with applying that mindset to skepticism toward the scientific consensus on climate change is that it doesn't really scale to such a large body of research over a long period of time.
Do scientists act in a bad-faith way to maintain their funding? Yes. It happens. But "scientific consensus" isn't built on individual publications. It's built on a large body of work over a long period of time. While the likelihood of a particular publication being biased in some way based on the individual situation of the publishing scientist is moderately likely, the probability of many publications being so biased over a large period of time in a way that remains internally consistent among all of them without someone in the community being able to smell the bullshit before a "consensus" is developed is actually pretty damn small.
Also, lets be real here: if you think most scientific skeptics are actually putting that much thought into their skepticism, you're giving them way too much fucking credit. I'm not one of the climate skeptics here. I have, multiple times, expressed that I see the Paris Accords as a valuable step forward and we should enforce them in full. Nor do I disagree with the general consensus of the fact that climate change is real, significant, and human-induced. What I am opposing, however, is the idea that just because "scientists" say it is so that it must be so. And frankly, when it comes to matters of policy, scientists are often remarkably short-sighted and self-interested. Not all of them, but it's enough to be a valid stereotype. Yes, there are plenty of idiots who are opposing climate change for ultimately invalid reasons, people seem to have a problem with the idea of opposing climate change regulation as anti-science and any form of skepticism of scientists as anti-science. That is completely invalid and in fact contrary to what the scientific method asks for, which is definitely not "blind faith in science." The question of "climate change policy" is one that has to answer questions of when do we need to act, how much do we need to do, and what should we do about those who are harmed by climate change policy? Citing scientists as unbiased arbiters of the truth is simply short-sighted for that purpose. Their opinion is valuable there, but far from infallible. Science =/= Scientists. You don't make policy based on what a scientist tells you. You base it on the papers on the topic or published works on the topic.
Science works through people. People have their biases and might, perhaps, express them in their recommendations of policy, for example. To ignore that is to ignore reality.
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So why exactly didn't that US Navy ship blow up the Chinese ship that stole their drone? That's a pretty clear case where firing upon a foreign vessel should be authorized.
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On December 17 2016 04:11 LegalLord wrote:
There we go. That's the issue.
Other than that we're basically talking around in circles and using the "label and dismiss" method that I have previously talked a lot about.
Most disagreement or critique on scientific issues tends to be unreasonable (see the absolute baloney that is the anti-vaxx movement) raised by people with no real science background buying into bullshit. This poisons the well for future discussion because scientists get tired of explaining themselves to people who have no fucking clue what they're talking about.
If "reasonable disagreement or critique" represented a significant portion of the discussion, the scientific community would probably be more open to it, but that's very clearly not the case. Most climate change skeptics come to the table with an even stronger bias/agenda than the scientists do.
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On December 17 2016 04:08 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2016 03:51 LegalLord wrote:On December 17 2016 03:48 Mohdoo wrote:
You are creating hypotheticals that don't relate at all to what I'm talking about.
My point is: When 98% agree, it is for a good reason and it can be believed. And are 98% of people correct 100% of the time? As I said, and I don't think we disagree: they are most likely correct, but it's not bad to be skeptical. History is littered with scientific consensuses that have been proven wrong. I'm not necessarily saying that manmade global warming climate skeptics are correct, but the rote dismissal of their positions is uncalled for. And the real issue is the McCarthyist attitude of the current climate change consensus. This apparently isn't an issue where reasonable disagreement or critique is allowed. Oh no, the skeptics all wind up on blacklists of various types, in addition to random threats of imprisonment for heresy.
I find its usually the act of publishing in science journals that does the most disproving of past scientific consensus. Usually because a new technology allows them to see more information than before, allowing to create better conclusions.
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On December 17 2016 04:17 xDaunt wrote:
So why exactly didn't that US Navy ship blow up the Chinese ship that stole their drone? That's a pretty clear case where firing upon a foreign vessel should be authorized.
Since they weren't actively fired on, they'd probably need presidential authorization.
I'm guessing the president didn't give it.
In general, starting shooting when lives aren't at stake is avoided if at all possible.
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On December 17 2016 04:13 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2016 04:07 Thieving Magpie wrote:On December 17 2016 04:02 LegalLord wrote:On December 17 2016 03:54 TheYango wrote:
LegalLord, while I think the problems you raise are valid and apply to skepticism of individual publications, the problem with applying that mindset to skepticism toward the scientific consensus on climate change is that it doesn't really scale to such a large body of research over a long period of time.
Do scientists act in a bad-faith way to maintain their funding? Yes. It happens. But "scientific consensus" isn't built on individual publications. It's built on a large body of work over a long period of time. While the likelihood of a particular publication being biased in some way based on the individual situation of the publishing scientist is moderately likely, the probability of many publications being so biased over a large period of time in a way that remains internally consistent among all of them without someone in the community being able to smell the bullshit before a "consensus" is developed is actually pretty damn small.
Also, lets be real here: if you think most scientific skeptics are actually putting that much thought into their skepticism, you're giving them way too much fucking credit. I'm not one of the climate skeptics here. I have, multiple times, expressed that I see the Paris Accords as a valuable step forward and we should enforce them in full. Nor do I disagree with the general consensus of the fact that climate change is real, significant, and human-induced. What I am opposing, however, is the idea that just because "scientists" say it is so that it must be so. And frankly, when it comes to matters of policy, scientists are often remarkably short-sighted and self-interested. Not all of them, but it's enough to be a valid stereotype. Yes, there are plenty of idiots who are opposing climate change for ultimately invalid reasons, people seem to have a problem with the idea of opposing climate change regulation as anti-science and any form of skepticism of scientists as anti-science. That is completely invalid and in fact contrary to what the scientific method asks for, which is definitely not "blind faith in science." The question of "climate change policy" is one that has to answer questions of when do we need to act, how much do we need to do, and what should we do about those who are harmed by climate change policy? Citing scientists as unbiased arbiters of the truth is simply short-sighted for that purpose. Their opinion is valuable there, but far from infallible. Science =/= Scientists. You don't make policy based on what a scientist tells you. You base it on the papers on the topic or published works on the topic. Science works through people. People have their biases and might, perhaps, express them in their recommendations of policy, for example. To ignore that is to ignore reality.
This topic was started by you on the topic of science being discussed in news media.
But if you want to bring in policy it is simply. Have policy makers read science journals and let the science journals talk for the scientists.
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On December 17 2016 04:19 Thieving Magpie wrote:
But if you want to bring in policy it is simply. Have policy makers read science journals and let the science journals talk for the scientists.
Reading scientific literature in a critical way is not a skill that is picked up overnight, not is it one that is otherwise useful for policymakers. I doubt this would really change anything.
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EPT
