Stop being astonished so easily. How much familiarity with climate science do you expect the average non-climate scientist to actually have?
I suspect that people displaying >95% certainty about AGW aren’t much more “familiar with the data” than the people who display less certainty—that their most significant difference is that they put more trust on what is a political position in the USA.
But I doubt you question the “familiarity with the data” of the people who are very very certain of your preferred position.
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.
I think you’re seriously failing to apply the Principle of Charity here. Do you think I assume that anyone who claims to “believe in the theory of evolution” understands it well?
RobbBB has already summed up why the levels of certainty shown in this survey would be anomalous when looked at purely from an “awareness of information” perspective, which is why I think that it would be pretty astonishing if lack of information were actually responsible.
AGW is a highly politicized issue, but then, so is evolution, and the controversy on evolution isn’t reflected among the membership of Less Wrong, because people aligned with the bundle of political beliefs which are opposed to it are barely represented here. I would not have predicted in advance that such a level of controversy on AGW would be reflected among the population of Less Wrong.
while anthropogenic global warming doesn’t yet have the same sort of degree of evidence as, say, evolution, I think that an assignment of about 70% probability represents either critical underconfidence or astonishingly low levels of familiarity with the data.
ArisKatsaris said:
I suspect that people displaying >95% certainty about AGW aren’t much more “familiar with the data” than the people who display less certainty
The problem with these arguments is that you need to 1. know the data 2. know how other people would interpret it , because with just 1. you’ll end up comparing your probability assignments with others’, and might perhaps mistake into thinking that their deviation from your estimation is due to lack of access to the data and/or understanding over it...… ….....unless you’re comparing it to what your idea of some consensus is.
...Meanwhile I don’t know either so just making a superficial observation, while not knowing which one of you knows which things here.
Stop being astonished so easily. How much familiarity with climate science do you expect the average non-climate scientist to actually have?
I suspect that people displaying >95% certainty about AGW aren’t much more “familiar with the data” than the people who display less certainty—that their most significant difference is that they put more trust on what is a political position in the USA.
But I doubt you question the “familiarity with the data” of the people who are very very certain of your preferred position.
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.
I think you’re seriously failing to apply the Principle of Charity here. Do you think I assume that anyone who claims to “believe in the theory of evolution” understands it well?
RobbBB has already summed up why the levels of certainty shown in this survey would be anomalous when looked at purely from an “awareness of information” perspective, which is why I think that it would be pretty astonishing if lack of information were actually responsible.
AGW is a highly politicized issue, but then, so is evolution, and the controversy on evolution isn’t reflected among the membership of Less Wrong, because people aligned with the bundle of political beliefs which are opposed to it are barely represented here. I would not have predicted in advance that such a level of controversy on AGW would be reflected among the population of Less Wrong.
Desrtopa said:
ArisKatsaris said:
The problem with these arguments is that you need to 1. know the data 2. know how other people would interpret it , because with just 1. you’ll end up comparing your probability assignments with others’, and might perhaps mistake into thinking that their deviation from your estimation is due to lack of access to the data and/or understanding over it...… ….....unless you’re comparing it to what your idea of some consensus is.
...Meanwhile I don’t know either so just making a superficial observation, while not knowing which one of you knows which things here.