Appeal to Authority? Not in the normal sense that the IPCC exercises violent force, and I therefore designate them factually correct. No, it’s an Appeal to Expertise Outside My Own Domain. It’s me expecting that the same academic and scientific processes and methods that produced my expertise in my fields produced domain-experts in other fields with their own expertise, and that I can therefore trust in their findings about as thoroughly as I trust in my own.
Appeal to Authority? Not in the normal sense that the IPCC exercises violent force, and I therefore designate them factually correct.
That’s not the normal sense of appeal to authority, that would be appeal to force.
No, it’s an Appeal to Expertise Outside My Own Domain.
And how do you know that they’re actual experts? Because they (metaphorically) wear lab coats? That’s what appeal to authority is. While it’s not necessarily a fallacy, it’s notable that science started making progress as soon as people disavowed using it.
I haven’t tracked down the specific evidence—but muons are comparatively easy:
They live long enough to leave tracks in particle detectors with known magnetic fields.
That gives you the charge-to-mass ratio. Given that charge looks quantized (Milliken oil drop experiment
and umpteen repetitions), and there are other pieces of evidence from the particle tracks of muon
decay (and the electrons from that decay again leave tracks, and the angles are visible even
if the neutrinos aren’t) - I’d be surprised if the muon mass wasn’t pretty solid.
Assuming that both particle physicists and climatologists are doing things properly, that would only mean that the muon mass has much smaller error bars than the global warming (which it does), not that the former is more likely to be correct within its error bars.
Then again, it’s possible that climatologists are less likely to be doing things properly.
If you ask a physicist or an evolutionist why their beliefs are correct they will generally give you an answer (or at least start talking about the general principal). If you ask that question about climate science you’ll generally get either a direct appeal to authority or an indirect one: it’s all in this official report which I haven’t read but it’s official so it must be correct.
Heck climate scientists aren’t even that sparing about basic facts. They’ll mention that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but avoid any more technical questions. For example, I only recently found out that (in the absence of other factors or any feedback) temperature is a logarithmic function of CO2 concentration.
Heck climate scientists aren’t even that sparing about basic facts. They’ll mention that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but avoid any more technical questions. For example, I only recently found out that (in the absence of other factors or any feedback) temperature is a logarithmic function of CO2 concentration.
So this seems like you’ve never cracked open any climate/atmospheric science textbook? Because that is pretty basic info. It seems like you’re determined to be skeptical despite not really spending much time learning about the state of the science. Also it sounds like you are equivocating between “climate scientist” and “person on the internet who believes in global warming.”
My background is particle physics, if someone asked me about the mass of a muon, I’d have to make about a hundred appeals to authority to give them any relevant information, and I suspect climate scientists are in the same boat when talking to people who don’t understand some of the basics. I’ve personally engaged with special relativity crackpots who ask you to justify everything, and keep saying this or that basic fact from the field is an appeal to authority. There is no convincing a determined skeptic, so it’s best not to engage.
If you are near a university campus, wait until there is a technical talk on climate modelling and go sit and listen (don’t ask questions, just listen). You’ll probably be surprised at how vociferous the debate is- climate modelers are serious scientists working hard on perfecting their models.
Appeal to Authority? Not in the normal sense that the IPCC exercises violent force, and I therefore designate them factually correct. No, it’s an Appeal to Expertise Outside My Own Domain. It’s me expecting that the same academic and scientific processes and methods that produced my expertise in my fields produced domain-experts in other fields with their own expertise, and that I can therefore trust in their findings about as thoroughly as I trust in my own.
That’s not the normal sense of appeal to authority, that would be appeal to force.
And how do you know that they’re actual experts? Because they (metaphorically) wear lab coats? That’s what appeal to authority is. While it’s not necessarily a fallacy, it’s notable that science started making progress as soon as people disavowed using it.
Do you believe that the mass of the muon as listed by the Particle Data Group is at least approximately correct? If so, why?
I haven’t tracked down the specific evidence—but muons are comparatively easy: They live long enough to leave tracks in particle detectors with known magnetic fields. That gives you the charge-to-mass ratio. Given that charge looks quantized (Milliken oil drop experiment and umpteen repetitions), and there are other pieces of evidence from the particle tracks of muon decay (and the electrons from that decay again leave tracks, and the angles are visible even if the neutrinos aren’t) - I’d be surprised if the muon mass wasn’t pretty solid.
Assuming that both particle physicists and climatologists are doing things properly, that would only mean that the muon mass has much smaller error bars than the global warming (which it does), not that the former is more likely to be correct within its error bars.
Then again, it’s possible that climatologists are less likely to be doing things properly.
If you ask a physicist or an evolutionist why their beliefs are correct they will generally give you an answer (or at least start talking about the general principal). If you ask that question about climate science you’ll generally get either a direct appeal to authority or an indirect one: it’s all in this official report which I haven’t read but it’s official so it must be correct.
Heck climate scientists aren’t even that sparing about basic facts. They’ll mention that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but avoid any more technical questions. For example, I only recently found out that (in the absence of other factors or any feedback) temperature is a logarithmic function of CO2 concentration.
So this seems like you’ve never cracked open any climate/atmospheric science textbook? Because that is pretty basic info. It seems like you’re determined to be skeptical despite not really spending much time learning about the state of the science. Also it sounds like you are equivocating between “climate scientist” and “person on the internet who believes in global warming.”
My background is particle physics, if someone asked me about the mass of a muon, I’d have to make about a hundred appeals to authority to give them any relevant information, and I suspect climate scientists are in the same boat when talking to people who don’t understand some of the basics. I’ve personally engaged with special relativity crackpots who ask you to justify everything, and keep saying this or that basic fact from the field is an appeal to authority. There is no convincing a determined skeptic, so it’s best not to engage.
If you are near a university campus, wait until there is a technical talk on climate modelling and go sit and listen (don’t ask questions, just listen). You’ll probably be surprised at how vociferous the debate is- climate modelers are serious scientists working hard on perfecting their models.