SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
For example, one on GM foods:
"Consuming foods with ingredients derived from GM crops is no riskier than consuming foods modified by conventional plant improvement techniques."
The primary conclusion is that for a number of claims that are generally held to be true by consensus, opposition to those results show interesting correlations: opposition correlates negatively with objective knowledge (what the final test indicated that the subject knew about the field), and positively with subjective knowledge (what the subject thought they knew about the field). Those who were most opposed tended to exhibit a large gap between what they knew and what they thought they knew.
Here's the list of subjects and then I'll get to the punch line:
- GM foods
- Vaccination
- Homeopathic medicine
- Nuclear power
- Climate change
- Big bang
- Evolution
Which one wasn't like the others?
Climate change!
The question was in the same vein as the rest:Most of the warming of Earth’s average global temperature over the second half of the 20th century has been caused by human activities.
Unlike every other field listed in this research, there was a slight positive correlation between opposition to the claim and objective knowledge of the subject (see figure 2).
What other consensus viewpoints are out there where agreement with the consensus correlations with greater ignorance of the subject? Economics maybe?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2022, @11:13PM
There is more than one AC in this thread. I've posted a couple of other comments, but I'm not responsible for all the AC comments.
Your first paragraph is BS. You begin by saying that the evidence in two of the studies isn't compelling, but you don't even bother to say why the evidence fails to be compelling. If you think the evidence is insufficient, you need to say why. In the absence of evidence, it's just as possible that you're rejecting those studies because their conclusions are inconvenient for your political views.
You follow up by criticizing the study that used models from CMIP5. Again, you don't provide any justification for why the simulations should be rejected. Attribution studies are difficult because we only have one Earth and, therefore, do not have the ability to have a control against which to compare Earth's climate. Because of this practical limitation, scientists often use models for attribution studies. They can run simulations where everything is equal except that one includes antropogenic forcing and the other does not. Sure, models are imperfect, but that does not mean they should be rejected out of hand. The atmospheric component of climate models is very similar to the models used for weather forecasting. Those models are imperfect, too, but that doesn't mean we should discard all weather forecasts that use numerical models.
From the paper:
The authors cited prior work to support that CMIP5 simulations are useful for attribution studies. If you believe the prior work is wrong, you need to explain why.
Basically, the scientists looked at a large number of models, and none of the models could come close to replicating the extreme event without including anthropogenic forcing. When the anthropogenic forcing was included in the simulations, they could reproduce the event. That supports the hypothesis that the event could not have occurred in the absence of anthropogenic forcing.
If you disagree with the studies, you need to actual provide reasons to do so. Because you haven't done so, it's just as possible that you're rejecting the studies because they're inconvenient for your political views.
As for the comments about the current drought, we're finally getting somewhere. You've actually provided some historical examples to support that there is precedent for what is currently observed. It supports that the current drought isn't severe enough that it couldn't occur in the absence of anthropogenic forcing. It's a severe drought, but I will accept the examples as evidence that the drought is not without precedent, and that the drought could occur without anthropogenic forcing.