Personally, my confidence about climate change is based largely around my confidence in the scientific consensus.
That’s the problem. Science is supposed to work based on replication, not “consensus”. The motto of the royal society loosely translated means “take no one’s word for it”. The fact that they’re now using anti-epistomology to argue for their claims is a big argument against them.
“My confidence in the scientific consensus” is code for:
“I am confident that If I were to put in the effort to become educated about the mechanisms of climate change and look at all the evidence that is available, I would come to the same conclusion as the scientific consensus”.
A lack of infinite resources prevents me from researching everything which is the consensus. Do you believe that beta decay is a real phenomenon? Why?
(I’ll charitably assume that by replication you mean something broader, e.g. scientific evidence—you can’t do replications sensu stricto in cosmology either.)
(I was about to type something very similar to what Ishaan said, but about birds being (descended from) dinosaurs instead of beta decay.)
The fact that they’re now using anti-epistomology to argue for their claims is a big argument against them.
Can you quote or link to a few examples where you think climatologists use anti-epistomology to argue for their claims?
I’ll charitably assume that by replication you mean something broader, e.g. scientific evidence—you can’t do replications sensu stricto in cosmology either.
You can replicate experiments. It’s hard if said experiment involves say an expensive telescope, but the observation should at least be consistent with what’s observed with cheaper telescopes.
(I was about to type something very similar to what Ishaan said, but about birds being (descended from) dinosaurs instead of beta decay.)
I’ve never heard people arguing for evolution use “the scientific consensus says evolution is true” as their main argument.
I’ll charitably assume that by replication you mean something broader, e.g. scientific evidence—you can’t do replications sensu stricto in cosmology either.
Their tendency to rely heavily on appeals to authority, e.g., “the science is settled”.
You can replicate experiments. It’s hard if said experiment involves say an expensive telescope, but the observation should at least be consistent with what’s observed with cheaper telescopes.
But the same applies if you replace “telescope” with “thermometer”, so replications in that sense are possible in climatology too! (The difference is just that the theoretical underpinnings of cosmology are much more solid than those of climatology.) You’d have a point if you said that you cannot create a new planet to test whether your climatological models are correct, but then again you can’t create a new universe to test your cosmological models either, or get a bunch of maniraptorans, wait 150 million years, and see what their descendants look like for that matter. (EDIT: Now I remember that at least one person has said more or less that as an argument against evolution being a scientific theory. Alas.)
I’ve never heard people arguing for evolution use “the scientific consensus says evolution is true” as their main argument.
Okay.
As a non-palaeontologist who’s never dug fossils or anything, the main reason I believe that birds are dinosaurs (in the monophyletic sense of the word) in spite of a small minority of palaeontologists disagreeing is that I think it’s far less likely for the consensus to be wrong than for the dissenters to be wrong.
There. Now you’ve heard one person using the scientific consensus as the main argument. Are you shifting your probability that birds are dinosaurs downwards?
Their tendency to rely heavily on appeals to authority, e.g., “the science is settled”.
I asked for a citation and I got a bare assertion. Can you produce a reference where a climatologist says “the science is settled” as if it was itself an argument, rather than a summary of evidence (preferably in a peer-reviewed journal—surely if you dug long enough you could found some exasperated evolutionist on the internet telling a creationist the same thing)?
I never said it was impossible to replicate climate experiments. The problem is that they tend to use “the science is settled” as an excuse to discourage people from attempting to replicate it. For example, by refusing to share data with anyone who hasn’t precommitted to not publishing failed replications, using peer-review and intimidation of editors to prevent failed replications from being published, accusing anyone who has published failed replications of only doing so because he was paid by the oil industry (the fact that said people frequently haven’t received any money from the oil industry being irrelevant) after all, if “the science is settled”, why else would someone publish a failed replication.
Their tendency to rely heavily on appeals to authority, e.g., “the science is settled”.
...when countering the equally generic claim that the science is not settled.
Specific criticisms receive specific replies; generic criticisms receive generic replies—not because more specific replies aren’t available, but for the tactical reason that a generic criticism is trivial to generate whereas a specific reply to a generic criticism is exhausting to generate.
That’s the problem. Science is supposed to work based on replication, not “consensus”. The motto of the royal society loosely translated means “take no one’s word for it”. The fact that they’re now using anti-epistomology to argue for their claims is a big argument against them.
“My confidence in the scientific consensus” is code for:
“I am confident that If I were to put in the effort to become educated about the mechanisms of climate change and look at all the evidence that is available, I would come to the same conclusion as the scientific consensus”.
A lack of infinite resources prevents me from researching everything which is the consensus. Do you believe that beta decay is a real phenomenon? Why?
(I’ll charitably assume that by replication you mean something broader, e.g. scientific evidence—you can’t do replications sensu stricto in cosmology either.)
(I was about to type something very similar to what Ishaan said, but about birds being (descended from) dinosaurs instead of beta decay.)
Can you quote or link to a few examples where you think climatologists use anti-epistomology to argue for their claims?
You can replicate experiments. It’s hard if said experiment involves say an expensive telescope, but the observation should at least be consistent with what’s observed with cheaper telescopes.
I’ve never heard people arguing for evolution use “the scientific consensus says evolution is true” as their main argument.
Their tendency to rely heavily on appeals to authority, e.g., “the science is settled”.
But the same applies if you replace “telescope” with “thermometer”, so replications in that sense are possible in climatology too! (The difference is just that the theoretical underpinnings of cosmology are much more solid than those of climatology.) You’d have a point if you said that you cannot create a new planet to test whether your climatological models are correct, but then again you can’t create a new universe to test your cosmological models either, or get a bunch of maniraptorans, wait 150 million years, and see what their descendants look like for that matter. (EDIT: Now I remember that at least one person has said more or less that as an argument against evolution being a scientific theory. Alas.)
Okay.
As a non-palaeontologist who’s never dug fossils or anything, the main reason I believe that birds are dinosaurs (in the monophyletic sense of the word) in spite of a small minority of palaeontologists disagreeing is that I think it’s far less likely for the consensus to be wrong than for the dissenters to be wrong.
There. Now you’ve heard one person using the scientific consensus as the main argument. Are you shifting your probability that birds are dinosaurs downwards?
I asked for a citation and I got a bare assertion. Can you produce a reference where a climatologist says “the science is settled” as if it was itself an argument, rather than a summary of evidence (preferably in a peer-reviewed journal—surely if you dug long enough you could found some exasperated evolutionist on the internet telling a creationist the same thing)?
I never said it was impossible to replicate climate experiments. The problem is that they tend to use “the science is settled” as an excuse to discourage people from attempting to replicate it. For example, by refusing to share data with anyone who hasn’t precommitted to not publishing failed replications, using peer-review and intimidation of editors to prevent failed replications from being published, accusing anyone who has published failed replications of only doing so because he was paid by the oil industry (the fact that said people frequently haven’t received any money from the oil industry being irrelevant) after all, if “the science is settled”, why else would someone publish a failed replication.
...when countering the equally generic claim that the science is not settled.
Specific criticisms receive specific replies; generic criticisms receive generic replies—not because more specific replies aren’t available, but for the tactical reason that a generic criticism is trivial to generate whereas a specific reply to a generic criticism is exhausting to generate.