The average LessWronger is almost certainly much more competent to evaluate that global temperatures have been rising significantly, and that at least one human behavior has had a nontrivial effect on this change in temperature, than to evaluate that all life on earth shares a common ancestral gene pool, or that some 13.75 billion years ago the universe began rapidly inflating. Yet I suspect that the modern evolutionary synthesis (including its common-descent thesis), and the Big Bang Theory, are believed more strongly by LessWrongers than is anthropogenic climate change.
If so, then it can’t purely be a matter of LessWrongers’ lack of expertise in climate science; there must be some sociological factors undermining LessWrongers’ confidence in some scientific claims they have to largely take scientists’ word for, while not undermining LessWrongers’ confidence in all scientific claims they have to largely take scientists’ word for.
Plausibly, the ongoing large-scale scientific misinformation campaign by established economic and political interests is having a big impact. Merely hearing about disagreement, even if you have an excellent human-affairs model predicting such disagreement in the absence of any legitimate scientific controversy, will for psychological reasons inevitably shake a generic onlooker’s confidence. Listen to convinced and articulate flat-earth skeptics long enough, and some measure of psychological doubt is inevitable, even if you are savvy enough to avoid letting this doubt creep into your more careful and reflective probability calculations.
The average LessWronger is almost certainly much more competent to evaluate [anthropogenic global warning] than [universal common descent or Big Bang cosmology]
I agree that they are likely at least competent about the former than the latter, but why do you think they are almost certainly much more competent?
Evaluating common descent requires evaluating the morphology, genome, and reproductive behavior of every extremely distinctive group of species, or of a great many. You don’t need to look at each individual species, but you at least need to rule out convergent evolution and (late) lateral gene transfer as adequate explanations of homology. (And, OK, aliens.) How many LessWrongers have put in that legwork?
Evaluating the age of the universe requires at least a healthy understanding of contemporary physics in general, and of cosmology. The difficulty isn’t just understanding why people think the universe is that old, but having a general enough understanding to independently conclude that alternative models are not correct.
That’s a very basic sketch of why I’d be surprised if LessWrongers could better justify those two claims than the mere claim that global temperatures have been rising (which has been in the news a fair amount, and can be confirmed in a few seconds on the Internet) and a decent assessment of the plausibility of carbon emissions as a physical mechanism. Some scientific knowledge will be required, but not of the holistic ‘almost all of biology’ or ‘almost all of physics’ sort indicated above, I believe.
The average LessWronger is almost certainly much more competent to evaluate that global temperatures have been rising significantly, and that at least one human behavior has had a nontrivial effect on this change in temperature, than to evaluate that all life on earth shares a common ancestral gene pool, or that some 13.75 billion years ago the universe began rapidly inflating. Yet I suspect that the modern evolutionary synthesis (including its common-descent thesis), and the Big Bang Theory, are believed more strongly by LessWrongers than is anthropogenic climate change.
If so, then it can’t purely be a matter of LessWrongers’ lack of expertise in climate science; there must be some sociological factors undermining LessWrongers’ confidence in some scientific claims they have to largely take scientists’ word for, while not undermining LessWrongers’ confidence in all scientific claims they have to largely take scientists’ word for.
Plausibly, the ongoing large-scale scientific misinformation campaign by established economic and political interests is having a big impact. Merely hearing about disagreement, even if you have an excellent human-affairs model predicting such disagreement in the absence of any legitimate scientific controversy, will for psychological reasons inevitably shake a generic onlooker’s confidence. Listen to convinced and articulate flat-earth skeptics long enough, and some measure of psychological doubt is inevitable, even if you are savvy enough to avoid letting this doubt creep into your more careful and reflective probability calculations.
I agree that they are likely at least competent about the former than the latter, but why do you think they are almost certainly much more competent?
Evaluating common descent requires evaluating the morphology, genome, and reproductive behavior of every extremely distinctive group of species, or of a great many. You don’t need to look at each individual species, but you at least need to rule out convergent evolution and (late) lateral gene transfer as adequate explanations of homology. (And, OK, aliens.) How many LessWrongers have put in that legwork?
Evaluating the age of the universe requires at least a healthy understanding of contemporary physics in general, and of cosmology. The difficulty isn’t just understanding why people think the universe is that old, but having a general enough understanding to independently conclude that alternative models are not correct.
That’s a very basic sketch of why I’d be surprised if LessWrongers could better justify those two claims than the mere claim that global temperatures have been rising (which has been in the news a fair amount, and can be confirmed in a few seconds on the Internet) and a decent assessment of the plausibility of carbon emissions as a physical mechanism. Some scientific knowledge will be required, but not of the holistic ‘almost all of biology’ or ‘almost all of physics’ sort indicated above, I believe.