Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Sunday September 09 2018, @12:29PM   Printer-friendly
from the Better-right-than-dead dept.

A Princeton geologist has endured decades of ridicule for arguing that the fifth extinction was caused not by an asteroid but by a series of colossal volcanic eruptions.

Interesting info about science, history, death, un-scientific feeds and the value of persistence.

Here's an excerpt from https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/09/dinosaur-extinction-debate/565769/:

While the majority of her peers embraced the Chicxulub asteroid as the cause of the extinction, Keller remained a maligned and, until recently, lonely voice contesting it. She argues that the mass extinction was caused not by a wrong-place-wrong-time asteroid collision but by a series of colossal volcanic eruptions in a part of western India known as the Deccan Traps—a theory that was first proposed in 1978 and then abandoned by all but a small number of scientists. Her research, undertaken with specialists around the world and featured in leading scientific journals, has forced other scientists to take a second look at their data. "Gerta uncovered many things through the years that just don't sit with the nice, simple impact story that Alvarez put together," Andrew Kerr, a geochemist at Cardiff University, told me. "She's made people think about a previously near-uniformly accepted model."

Keller's resistance has put her at the core of one of the most rancorous and longest-running controversies in science. "It's like the Thirty Years' War," says Kirk Johnson, the director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. Impacters' case-closed confidence belies decades of vicious infighting, with the two sides trading accusations of slander, sabotage, threats, discrimination, spurious data, and attempts to torpedo careers. "I've never come across anything that's been so acrimonious," Kerr says. "I'm almost speechless because of it." Keller keeps a running list of insults that other scientists have hurled at her, either behind her back or to her face. She says she's been called a "bitch" and "the most dangerous woman in the world," who "should be stoned and burned at the stake."

[...] "It has all the aspects of a really nice story," Keller says of the asteroid theory. "It's just not true." (Cole Wilson)

This dispute illuminates the messy way that science progresses, and how this idealized process, ostensibly guided by objective reason and the search for truth, is shaped by ego, power, and politics. Keller has had to endure decades of ridicule to make scientists reconsider an idea they had confidently rejected. "Gerta had to fight very much to get into the position that she is in right now," says Wolfgang Stinnesbeck, a collaborator of Keller's from Heidelberg University. "It's thanks to her that the case is not closed."

Background:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerta_Keller


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 5, Touché) by Thexalon on Sunday September 09 2018, @04:51PM (23 children)

    by Thexalon (636) on Sunday September 09 2018, @04:51PM (#732500)

    Why don't you say what you mean to say: "A vast majority of scientists may possibly be wrong about something that happened 65 million years ago (or they may not be, because there's still lots of evidence supporting their claims and the two competing ideas here aren't mutually exclusive). Ergo, scientists can be wrong about things. Therefor, AGW, a completely different idea with a completely different set of evidence, must be a massive conspiracy and not true. Q.E.D."

    Maybe you don't say that because it's such an obvious bit of bad logic. After all, by the exact same form of argument, I can "disprove" gravity, evolution, and lots of other settled science.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +3  
       Insightful=1, Touché=2, Total=3
    Extra 'Touché' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   5  
  • (Score: 4, Informative) by Arik on Sunday September 09 2018, @05:40PM (18 children)

    by Arik (4543) on Sunday September 09 2018, @05:40PM (#732505) Journal
    It's such bad logic because you made such a straw man out of it.

    I appreciate that he didn't give you a syllogism so you tried to make one, but your scarecrow doesn't even intersect his argument at all!

    His point was about "scientific consensus." Your scarecrow doesn't even reference that concept.

    Instead you're yammering about proving that scientists can be wrong (he didn't mention that) and then you pretend that somehow disproves something else he didn't mention. It doesn't, of course, but no one but you ever thought it would!

    --
    If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday September 09 2018, @07:11PM

      by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Sunday September 09 2018, @07:11PM (#732523) Homepage Journal

      Indeed. I don't even have a position on AGW aside from an innate distrust for any scientific position defended primarily by people who know nothing about it except "a bunch of nerds agree with me, so my side's right and you're literally Hitler".

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday September 09 2018, @10:19PM (16 children)

      by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Sunday September 09 2018, @10:19PM (#732603) Journal

      Okay, so now he's clarified that he's talking about AGW in a post that is a child of your post. So we know for sure what comparison is being addressed.

      But let's be honest about that comparison here. Let's look in detail at the characteristics of the two debates.

      First, this story at the Atlantic is mostly told from the view of the supposed "upstart" female scientist (and yes, if you read long enough, it's suggested that her perspectives have been dismissed because she's female -- and that's quite possible it's played into this). The press loves an "underdog" story. We get a few quotes in response by the "other side" in this debate, but they really don't get much time in the very long article.

      Mostly, we're getting a narrative about an "underdog" who overcame numerous obstacles (including several times nearly dying from random events during her life, and overcoming people in her youth who didn't think she could succeed) to challenge a huge "mythic" figure in her field who supposedly bullied everyone in the 1980s into his position. Apparently NOBODY was on her side, and somehow she almost single-handedly is overturning dogma in her field.

      Does this story sound familiar? It should, because it's a variant of the story of numerous Hollywood blockbusters, numerous feel-good "afternoon specials," etc., etc. It's a common trope that shows up everywhere, and the author of TFA is using this trope to make it appealing to readers.

      But if you actually know ANYTHING about this debate before reading TFA (or, frankly, even "read between the lines" in TFA), it's pretty clear it's being told from a biased perspective. There's exaggeration going on in various places.

      I'm old enough to remember when the "asteroid/comet collision" theory swept the media back in the 1980s. At the time, I was young enough that I just accepted it was probably the new theory. Then, at some point quite a while ago (probably late 1990s or early 2000s), I actually looked into the debate, and it was clear there were differing professional views on the issue. And that's what I've accepted for the past 20 years. I know the mainstream media reporting has favored the asteroid theory for a long time, but it was clear that the professional literature situation was a bit different.

      And TFA admits that, repeatedly throughout. While they use the word "consensus," I never got the impression we were talking about even 90% of scientists in the field believing the asteroid theory. Maybe as high as 70-80% at a high point, but it's hard to tell without looking at a literature review. The sense I've gotten from other sources is that if you ask geophysicists, they are likely to agree with the asteroid theory. If you ask paleontologists and paleobiologists, you're likely to get much more diversity of opinion. TFA repeatedly mentions panels and responses in journals and dissenting papers in journals. This isn't broad "consensus" against a single "underdog." This is just factions, and they're overly rancorous partly because the main guy who originally promoted the "asteroid" theory was a bit of an "underdog" himself in the field -- and outsider physicist (rather than paleontologist) who was known for other things and apparently "threw his weight around" from his larger public stature to push people toward his view. (You want to see how much of a jerk he was? Read this NYT piece [nytimes.com] from the 1980s. Again, note the disparity between how he characterizes the debate as settled vs. the NYT fact-checkers and other interviewees. Basically this new Atlantic piece is strategically accepting the jerk's false perspective to produce a new underdog narrative. Very clever.)

      Does this happen in science? Absolutely. There's politics in every field. Is this a story of a "broad scientific consensus" that is now threatened to be overthrown because of the actions of a lone underdog? Absolutely not. That supposed "broad consensus" never existed. The closest it ever came to it (as expressed in TFA) is apparently the "rock-solid case" in Science supporting the asteroid theory in 2010 which was widely [nbcnews.com] reported in the media [scientificamerican.com]. But TFA notes that DOZENS of scientists wrote dissenting opinions to Science after that paper. Not exactly the hallmark of "broad consensus."

      So, TFA overstates its narrative a bit to make the case for this "underdog." It's a nice literary device, even if an exaggeration here. I have no doubt this person was called various names over the years. Factions in a field will do that. In an area close to my own research, there was a similar "underdog" story precipitating from a conference event in the early 1980s that apparently nearly came to blows. Some upstart had the temerity to propose a crazy solution to some puzzling historical evidence. And you know what happened? Decades later, he has quite a few advocates in the field, and still a lot of people who hold to the other theory -- and in this case historical evidence may never be strong enough to settle the matter completely. But I know this guy. I've talked with him. And if the Atlantic or the New Yorker came around to interview him, and they based their account mostly on his perspective, they'd likely come up with a piece like this -- people yelling and screaming at him, trying to drive him from the field or whatever. What actually has happened is gradually people either came around to accepting his view (including some high-profile members of the field I know) or they mostly realized his argument had evidence behind it -- but they don't think the evidence is strong enough, so they just disagree. His perspective is more accepted than ever, but if you heard his version of it, I'm sure it would be one of those "underdog" stories again about persecution. And I'm sure he was persecuted by some people -- but the overall trend has been toward greater acceptance of his perspective.

      Okay... pause.

      Now let's consider the case of climate change caused by humans. It's been a couple years since I looked at the literature on "consensus" there, but there have been quite a few formal studies of it. And yes, I've also seen flaws in some of those consensus studies, too. Clearly there are people with agendas.

      On the other hand, even if you take the worst-case "consensus" study in climate change, what you see is a gradual historical trend from something like 60-70% of climate scientists buying into human-caused climate change in the late 1980s-early 1990s, to something like 95% in the mid-2000s to something greater than 97% today. (That last number is up for debate and depends on what metrics you use -- number of papers published, interviews/surveys of experts, etc. Some studies claim higher than 99.5%, but I remember finding fault in methodology there. It seems like >97% is a good estimate.) Most importantly, as more data has been collected and the climate has continued to vary with the new data, more and more scientists are coming toward the side of anthropogenic climate change.

      Can anyone point to ANYTHING ever demonstrating that >90% of paleontologists accepted a "consensus" that the asteroid impact theory was the only viable interpretation of the data (let alone 97% or greater)? Again, the sense I got from TFA (reading between the lines about how every conference, journal, etc. mentioned had some "dissenters") is that there has always been substantial dissent or at least acceptance of alternative perspectives, even despite the original proponent of the theory (and some of his acolytes) being a jerk about it.

      Instead of the pattern of TFA with continuous controversy, it seems climate change has followed the pattern TFA contrasts with the asteroid theory -- i.e., it points out the gradual acceptance of plate tectonic theories over several decades, as has occurred with global warming, growing to ever higher consensus numbers (instead of the asteroid debate, which seems to have led to increasing debate and dissent in the past couple decades).

      The difference here is where public perception is disconnected with scientific discourse.
      -- With plate tectonics, the public was gradually introduced to the theory, and public acceptance seemed to grow as scientific consensus grew.
      -- With the asteroid theory for the K-T event, a high-profile physicist used his clout to sway public opinion before scientific consensus formed, but now his perspective is seen to be more dominant by the public than actual consensus in the scientific community would suggest.
      -- With climate change, the scientific consensus has grown consistently over the past three decades, but public skepticism has remained high and perhaps even increased (largely due to political and business interests that have a lot to lose if major policy changes are made to deal with potential climate change).

      A final thought: I think the writer here is being a little too clever. I doubt it's a coincidence that TFA portrays the "asteroid theory" acceptance as a sudden shift to near complete consensus in academic beliefs, rather than a gradually changing debate (like it seems to have actually been). It this some grand narrative metaphor for the problems with the asteroid theory and its sudden shift toward extinction, as opposed to the more gradual volcanic theory?

      Overall, it's an entertaining piece of writing, as it was designed to be. I'd love to read a similar article told from the perspectives of both sides, though. My guess is the narrative would be much less interesting and much more mundane politics and factions. But then you don't get your Hollywood underdog story. (If the volcanic theory grows in acceptance in coming years, you can bet there will be a Hollywood movie made out of this.) Unfortunately, I doubt the version will blame the real culprits here -- the media, who accepted the asteroid theory too early and trumpeted it as THE solution. THAT'S probably more of an issue in overcoming perception of "consensus" in this case.

      • (Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Sunday September 09 2018, @11:18PM (10 children)

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday September 09 2018, @11:18PM (#732612) Journal

        Can anyone point to ANYTHING ever demonstrating that >90% of paleontologists accepted a "consensus" that the asteroid impact theory was the only viable interpretation of the data (let alone 97% or greater)? Again, the sense I got from TFA (reading between the lines about how every conference, journal, etc. mentioned had some "dissenters") is that there has always been substantial dissent or at least acceptance of alternative perspectives, even despite the original proponent of the theory (and some of his acolytes) being a jerk about it.

        [...]

        On the other hand, even if you take the worst-case "consensus" study in climate change, what you see is a gradual historical trend from something like 60-70% of climate scientists buying into human-caused climate change in the late 1980s-early 1990s, to something like 95% in the mid-2000s to something greater than 97% today. (That last number is up for debate and depends on what metrics you use -- number of papers published, interviews/surveys of experts, etc. Some studies claim higher than 99.5%, but I remember finding fault in methodology there. It seems like >97% is a good estimate.) Most importantly, as more data has been collected and the climate has continued to vary with the new data, more and more scientists are coming toward the side of anthropogenic climate change.

        The obvious rebuttal here is that in the former case they don't care about the degree of consensus, instead focusing on the actual arguments and their supporting evidence. While in the case of climate change, there are a number of studies that focused merely on creating the illusion of consensus. That's where numbers like 97% and 99.5% come from.

        For example, there would be little point to speculating on how much consensus there was about the existence of dinosaurs and their subsequent extinction (aside from birds), even most creationists believe they existed and died out. We're probably above 99%. So what?

        Does that high consensus mean that we have a similar consensus on what killed the dinosaurs? Of course not. Once we go beyond basics in the field, we start running into disagreement on what really happened. Same happens with climate change. Once you go beyond the basic observation you made above, consensus declines quickly. But you don't hear much about that decline in consensus from the papers with the ludicrously high levels of agreement, eh? They're just there to provide talking points not some sort of factual study of consensus.

        Funny how one field doesn't care about the degree of consensus while a good portion of climatology obsesses over it.

        • (Score: 4, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday September 10 2018, @12:49AM (9 children)

          by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Monday September 10 2018, @12:49AM (#732620) Journal

          Actually some of the consensus studies in climate change are VERY specific about what they're talking about and counting as consensus. The 97+% number comes from those scientists who believe climate change is happening, that it's significantly different than usual historical patterns, AND that it's primarily caused by humans.

          If you exclude that last one, you get up to the 99.5+% stats.

          As for why climate scientists started actually publishing papers on it, it was because people like you KEPT LYING THROUGH YOUR TEETH AND CLAIMING THERE WAS A HUGE CONTROVERSY AND LARGE NUMBERS OF DISSENTERS WHEN THERE WAS NOT.

          Keep trolling though, moron. Maybe some other idiots will believe you.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 10 2018, @04:10AM (4 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 10 2018, @04:10AM (#732655)

            Climate scientists are about the most biased people you could pick.

            If you disagree with the orthodox opinion, your papers will not be published and you will not get tenure. All the reviewers have published papers that are orthodox, and would thus be threatened (invalidated even) if any non-orthodox theory were to succeed. Nobody can enter the set of "climate scientists" without first accepting the orthodox opinion.

            A somewhat acceptable group of people would be statisticians who have looked at the data but have no other career-related connection to it. They might need to be granted anonymity even, though that causes problems too. Perhaps retired statisticians would work. Oh wait, the climate scientists are infamous for refusing to release full data.

            • (Score: 3, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday September 10 2018, @12:43PM (3 children)

              by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Monday September 10 2018, @12:43PM (#732732) Journal

              Climate scientists are about the most biased people you could pick.

              By the logic, we should never believe the opinion of experts. All of those physicists and their darn "theory of relativity" BS -- what's up with them?? Everyone knows gravity works by tiny magical gnomes who push and pull things around.

              If you disagree with the orthodox opinion, your papers will not be published and you will not get tenure. All the reviewers have published papers that are orthodox, and would thus be threatened (invalidated even) if any non-orthodox theory were to succeed. Nobody can enter the set of "climate scientists" without first accepting the orthodox opinion.

              Ah yes, the conspiracy theory version of debate. It's all a grand conspiracy.

              Except the real question you should ask (if you were honest) is who has even more motivation to lie about these things. Oil companies, coal companies, all the huge businesses that depend on the public's continued ignorance of likely climate scenarios if we keep doing what we're doing -- they all have huge amounts of money invested in such things.

              Meanwhile, let's just for a moment assume you're right -- and a bunch of climate scientists are willing to sell themselves out and publish lies just so they can get tenure.

              Okay, then you've just proven that there's likely a significant number of climate scientists who are willing to publish things they don't actually believe just so they can make money.

              You know who has lots of money? Oil companies. Coal companies. And all those other businesses. And it would really be in their best interest if they could lower those "97% consensus" numbers or whatever. So, I'm sure there are such companies who would pay a climate scientist huge amounts of money (much more than most of them earn in tenure-track positions -- despite common perception, the vast majority of faculty at higher ed institutions aren't earning huge salaries) if they could be swayed to write studies that support the petroleum industry or whatever.

              So where are all of those people in the "pockets" of petroleum?? All of these climate scientists with no integrity and willing to sell their souls to get tenure, but they're not willing to earn a lot more money lying for industry? After all, it happens in a lot of other fields. We know a lot of pharma studies are bogus because they're done by scientists at pharma companies and biased in various ways. We know food studies about "X will cure cancer!" are frequently influenced by food industry lobby groups who hire their internal food scientists to do studies.

              So where the heck are all the climate scientists willing to do this for industry???

              If you actually follow your logical argument about who has motivation to do this, what you should actually conclude is that the absence of more than a few percent of dissenting climate scientists means even with potential incentives from the petroleum industry, etc., only a very small number of climate scientists are swayed.

              So either climate scientists just have a LOT more integrity than just about any other field, OR the facts are so utterly overwhelming in this case that even scientists who might be motivated by subsidies from the petrol industry, etc. can't figure out how to do it without it sounding stupid or disingenuous or whatever.

              Oh wait, the climate scientists are infamous for refusing to release full data.

              Yeah, just keep up with the conspiracy talk. It's the ultimate refuge of the conspiracy theorist when finally confronted with overwhelming proof against him -- "But, but, but -- they're hiding the real truth! We just don't have the real facts!"

              • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday September 10 2018, @01:11PM

                by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 10 2018, @01:11PM (#732744) Journal

                Climate scientists are about the most biased people you could pick.

                By the logic, we should never believe the opinion of experts. All of those physicists and their darn "theory of relativity" BS -- what's up with them?? Everyone knows gravity works by tiny magical gnomes who push and pull things around.

                Let's look at the actual reasoning here from the earlier post.

                If you disagree with the orthodox opinion, your papers will not be published and you will not get tenure.

                So no, magical gnomes are not the "logic". Boy, you're a bundle of irrationality today.

              • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday September 10 2018, @01:22PM (1 child)

                by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 10 2018, @01:22PM (#732746) Journal

                Except the real question you should ask (if you were honest) is who has even more motivation to lie about these things. Oil companies, coal companies, all the huge businesses that depend on the public's continued ignorance of likely climate scenarios if we keep doing what we're doing -- they all have huge amounts of money invested in such things.

                And on this note, let us note the remarkable absence of fossil fuel business from the propaganda war. They can afford to spend a couple of orders of magnitude more on this than they have.

                So either climate scientists just have a LOT more integrity than just about any other field, OR the facts are so utterly overwhelming in this case that even scientists who might be motivated by subsidies from the petrol industry, etc. can't figure out how to do it without it sounding stupid or disingenuous or whatever.

                Or three, all these parties have an interest in sustaining the extremely profitable affair. Please recall that the petrol industry has done quite well in these times of climate change with the key problem being too much supply.

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 10 2018, @05:55PM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 10 2018, @05:55PM (#732845)

                  Go away you troll

          • (Score: 2) by Arik on Monday September 10 2018, @04:23AM (1 child)

            by Arik (4543) on Monday September 10 2018, @04:23AM (#732661) Journal
            You should read up on something called 'manufacturing consent.'

            "The 97+% number comes from those scientists who believe climate change is happening, that it's significantly different than usual historical patterns, AND that it's primarily caused by humans."

            OK.

            So here's the funny thing.

            Ask me the same question, and well my first impulse is going to be to refuse to answer such a stupid question actually, and try to explain to you why it's a stupid question and you shouldn't ask it. But let's say you have me somehow limited to a yes or no answer and I have to give on, ok, fine, the answer is yes.

            Ask 100 people like me the same question, and you're going to have a real high agreement. 99% or better, I should think.

            But here's the important thing - you've proven nothing, your results mean nothing, you need to learn to ask better questions!

            --
            If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
            • (Score: 3, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday September 10 2018, @12:11PM

              by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Monday September 10 2018, @12:11PM (#732726) Journal

              You should read up on something called 'manufacturing consent.'

              You should read up on something called "climate change consensus studies."

              If you did, you might learn that these have been conducted using a wide variety of methodologies. There are at least a dozen in the past decade that have come up with a consensus number in the range around 97% (or higher). Yes, some of them have been (as you assume) a poll. Some of them have asked more specific questions. Some of them have been of "top scientists" (determined by a number of metrics), some have been broader.

              Some have also been surveys of research in journals, looking for articles and authors who question various elements. They haven't all been vague misleading polls, as you assume. All these different methodologies seem to come up with rather high consensus figures. When you use a wide variety of methodologies to try to measure the answer to a question, and you keep coming up with similar high values, there might be something there.

              Ask 100 people like me the same question, and you're going to have a real high agreement. 99% or better, I should think.

              Well, I don't know exactly who qualifies as "people like [you]", but if you ask 100 Americans the same question, only about 66% [gallup.com] say global warming is actually occurring, and only 64% say it is caused by human activities. Those numbers are actually a little higher than in recent years (when they used to hover around 50%), but it's still nowhere near "99% or better."

              Meanwhile, roughly half of Congress [vice.com] doesn't agree with the figure you think 99% of reasonable people might agree with.

              Those are some pretty big discrepancies. 97%+ of experts in the field agree, only about 2/3 of Americans agree, and only about 50% of Congress agrees. So much for "manufacturing consensus."

              Ask me the same question, and well my first impulse is going to be to refuse to answer such a stupid question actually, and try to explain to you why it's a stupid question and you shouldn't ask it.

              Setting aside the various research methodologies for calculating consensus I mentioned above, let's just assume we took a single naive poll, as you seem to assume. I take it your objection to this "stupid question" is that it should garner broad consensus because it doesn't make clear what the standards are. Some scientists might believe we're on a catastrophic trajectory in the next few decades, while others might believe global warming is happening and yet not think it's a major problem.

              And that's true. There's lots of diversity of opinion on the magnitude of predictions. (By the way, regarding this, you should read up on something called "moving the goalposts" as it's a common rhetorical and debate strategy that deniers and conspiracy theorists adopt.)

              But that's irrelevant when 1/3 of the public and 1/2 of Congress deny even the most basic concept that it's happening.

              That's the real disconnect here, and the most essential one. If you could actually ask Congress and the public the same question, and get 90%+ agreement with the consensus you assume should be "99% or better, I should think," then we can start debating the nuances of climate policy, exact magnitudes, and other subtleties. But right now we have huge numbers of people (and large numbers of people in power) who refuse to believe in basic facts.

              But here's the important thing - you've proven nothing, your results mean nothing, you need to learn to ask better questions!

              Actually, we've proven consistently that experts have a grossly different opinion on these things than those who know less. That certainly means something... because it causes us to get stuck in stupid debates like this rather than agreeing, "Yeah, it's happening..." and then moving on to more rational debate about what to do about it, how big the impact is, etc.

          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday September 10 2018, @06:01AM (1 child)

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 10 2018, @06:01AM (#732675) Journal
            I think what's most bizarre about your post is that you don't actually disagree with what I wrote. I wasn't disputing that there are matters in climate research that have extremely high consensus.

            What I dispute that this consensus lingers once you go from the basic statement that humans have impact on climate to claims like we need to stop all greenhouse gases emissions by 2050 or we're going to suffer major harm or that a 1 C increase in near future global mean temperature will result in a 3 C increase in long term global mean temperature (the extreme side of the climate sensitivity to a doubling of greenhouse gases, 4.5 C per doubling, which supposes a great deal of unobserved feedback mechanism).

            For that, we need evidence not imaginary consensus.
      • (Score: 2) by Arik on Monday September 10 2018, @04:31AM (4 children)

        by Arik (4543) on Monday September 10 2018, @04:31AM (#732663) Journal
        "Okay, so now he's clarified that he's talking about AGW in a post that is a child of your post."

        I read that, I went to verify it, I obviously saw that you lied. You must think your readers are incredibly stupid.
        --
        If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
        • (Score: 1, Flamebait) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday September 10 2018, @12:55PM (3 children)

          by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Monday September 10 2018, @12:55PM (#732737) Journal

          I read that, I went to verify it, I obviously saw that you lied. You must think your readers are incredibly stupid.

          Here's the post [soylentnews.org]. Here's what it said:

          I don't even have a position on AGW aside from an innate distrust for any scientific position defended primarily by people who know nothing about it except "a bunch of nerds agree with me, so my side's right and you're literally Hitler".

          Right there Mr. Buzzard refers to "an innate distrust for any scientific position defended..." and coupled with "aside from..." mentioned right after AGW, the logical implication is "I have an innate distrust for AGW since it is primarily defended..." I also admit to have read "a bunch of nerds agree" to mean people who actually know about climate science (since that group is implicitly contrasted with the speakers who are assumed to be ignorant).

          Anyhow, you can take the rational stance that Mr. Buzzard was obviously making a reference to AGW at the outset, which he has done in other posts here as well. Or you can act like an idiot and play semantics and try to get out of clear implications.

          I don't really care. What you, sir, have proven yourself to be is a TROLL. And an ass.

          Therefore, Mr. Arik, I say farewell. I shall not reply to your posts again. I believe feeding the trolls does much, much more harm to this site, and despite your occasional moments of lucidity, you have proven you are willing to be an ass and to deny common sense to try to make a point.

          I've always disliked your crimes against typography, but I shall support them no longer. Goodbye, Mr. Arik. It's been weird!

          Cheers!

          • (Score: 1, Troll) by VLM on Monday September 10 2018, @01:03PM (2 children)

            by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 10 2018, @01:03PM (#732742)

            I also admit to have read "a bunch of nerds agree" to mean people who actually know about climate science

            That's much more realistically people who watch "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert" or non-STEM academics. I find it very damning that the most strident true believers in AGW with the most intense propaganda are, like, sociology professors.

            Surely, if the worlds plumbers, arborists, and dentists united in an intense devout religious like belief in P = NP including suppression of heretics, that would be a VERY strong signal that in reality P != NP. Sometimes a blind dog finds a bone, but anti-social behavior is usually correlated with being wrong, so its very unlikely they're correct.

            With a side dish of lying about the topic. In public AGW means scientific stuff about temperatures rising. In private the solutions are always scientifically insignificant but always very effective at being hyper corrupt. "I believe in F=m*a and therefore you should rob a bank and gimme da money, what do you mean you don't wanna do that you must be a DENIER? burn that heretic at the stake what kind of moron doesn't believe in F=m*a now gimme 'my' money! ! ! !"

            • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday September 10 2018, @05:29PM (1 child)

              by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Monday September 10 2018, @05:29PM (#732830) Journal

              You know what, I'm done. I'm tired of replying to inane crap like this. I don't really care what Mr. Buzzard originally said precisely -- it's clear what the troll meant. It's clear what the troll who replied to the troll meant.

              And Mr. VLM (who also sometimes plays the troll role), the whole point of this thread is that a large number of actual experts who understand this stuff accept the findings that climate change is happened.

              I'm all for rationally debating with people I disagree with. In fact, I really enjoy it. But I've realized in recent weeks that's not happening here anymore. I either post something informative (and usually it leads to no further discussion), or I get into an argument with someone who shouts back illogical non sequiturs or starts arguing around stuff rather than addressing any legitimate points of contention. I'm a firm believer in rational discourse, and that's no longer possible here (if it ever was... perhaps my hopes were just aspirational).

              So, I'm done. I'm logging out of Soylent News.

              Bye everyone. I'm tired of this shit. I might think about logging in again in a few weeks (or maybe post a final journal to explain why I'm leaving), but I think I'm done for good.

              Cheers to all. I wish most of you well, even the trolls. I'm just not in it for the lulz, and I don't want to be somewhere where a large number of prominent folks are in it for the lulz. Just not my thing.

              • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 10 2018, @06:08PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 10 2018, @06:08PM (#732854)

                Yep, maybe now you understand some of the ACs like myself who have flagged some of the shit users who troll and are just plain stupid and we no longer go for discourse and just hop straight to ad-hominems. No point wasting your time and legitimate effort.

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday September 09 2018, @08:24PM (3 children)

    by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Sunday September 09 2018, @08:24PM (#732566) Journal

    God, he's a piece of shit isn't he? It's not "settled science" that he's not a brain in a vat being groomed to be dumped into an infinite torture simulation either, so he'd better spend the rest of his life having a panic attack at the oncoming torment he's powerless to do anything about, right?

    --
    I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
    • (Score: 2, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Sunday September 09 2018, @08:48PM

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday September 09 2018, @08:48PM (#732576) Journal

      It's alright when you address God. It's even alright when you address Him on intimate terms. Just let us know when he starts answering you. Especially, if God agrees with you, we all want to know about it.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 10 2018, @07:09AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 10 2018, @07:09AM (#732679)

      A brain?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 11 2018, @05:34PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 11 2018, @05:34PM (#733218)

        His primary brain atrophied away, now that dinosaur is running solely on his hind brain, or "butt brain" if you will.