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Shivetya | 4 years ago

We won't know because it will be ever changing. The problem has always been is alarmist have exaggerated, set dead lines, and scare tactics, and never once been right. You can simply search old news papers less than ten years old or even early youtube videos to see all sorts of predictions by people we were told you cannot question and they are all wrong.

I've given up even trying to debate any portion of the climate because no opinion other than agreement is allowed. You must fully agree with all statements because even questioning minor parts gets your branded.

The damage done to serious debate is astounding.

Yet, read a paper from a hundred years ago, fifty years ago, twenty, or ten, and even five, and you will see what has been predicted before and never come to pass will be predicted again with the same vehemence if not worse.

Are there things we can change and need to change. Yes, and we have been making great progress. However doubling down each time you don't get it right will not make it better.

It was fun here while it lasted

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DangitBobby|4 years ago

It's unfortunate that some inaccurate predictions are used as "justification" to discredit research which has actually been conducted and communicated rather carefully for the most part. The predictions made have often been conservative with in the level of indicated catastrophe to prevent exactly the sort of backlash of alarmist-alarmism you are now espousing.

BackBlast|4 years ago

I've debated the topic for over a decade now. You make it sound like the majority of the research is sound or that the majority of the actors are good and honest.

The layout on the ground is true to how the grandparent lays it out. Questions are rejected. Doubts are branded as essentially unfaithful. Credentials are waved as proof of correctness instead of evidence combined with ideas, all while people with differing beliefs or ideas are stripped of their credentials, or have them invalidated. It's a recipe for close minded and one sided discourse.

The problems in science, as practiced today in academia, are legion. Meta science show the accuracy of the general landscape is poor. Common errors abound, papers that are considered the gold standards for years are shown to be built on faulty premise, code, methodology, etc.

To be fair, doing it right is HARD. Throw in even some mild corruption, bias in funding, dismissal of the skeptical, peg career advancement to publishing metrics (It's like measuring productivity by lines of code checked in. Once everyone knows it's happening the metric becomes totally useless due to systemic manipulation. The meta game shifts to hiding your manipulation of the metric while you manipulate the metric.). This system tends to produce generally poor results.