You just confirm my point. The very fact that you use phrases like “policy implications of climate science”, and “subject’s ideological enemies” shows it’s a highly politicized field. You wouldn’t say “policy implications of quantum physics” or “chemistry’s ideological enemies”.
In case you didn’t follow Climategate, it look that scientists from East Anglia University engaged in politics a lot, including dirty politics; and they were nothing like neutral scientists merely seeking the truth and letting others deal with policy. You may find their actions warranted due to some greater good, or not, but it’s not normal scientific practice, and I’d be willing to bet against pretty high rates that you would not find anything like that on any evolutionary biology department.
That doesn’t mean their findings are wrong. There are plenty of highly politicized issues where the mainstream is right or mostly right, but this rate is significantly lower than for non-politicized science. For example mainstream accounts of histories of most nations tend to be strongly whitewashed, as it’s politically convenient. They are mostly accurate when it comes to events, but you can be fairly sure there are some systemic distortions. That’s the reference class in which I put climate science—most likely right on main points, most likely with significant distortions, and with non-negligible chance of being entirely wrong.
On the other hand the moment climate scientists switch from talking about climate to talking about policy or impact of climate change of human well-being, I estimate that they’re almost certainly wrong. There is no reference class I can think of which suggests otherwise, and the closest reference class of Doomsday predictors has just this kind of track record.
If you want some more, I did blog a bit about climate change recently: 1, 2, 3.
Look, when you are sure you are right everything confirms your belief.
Who are these ‘neutral scientists’? When did climate scientists leave this class? What expert would just cede policy considerations to non-experts? I hope this class of people is a rare breed.
Climate science has obvious policy implications since CO2 is the problem.
Other sciences have had results that have clear policy implications. CFCs were bad. Marijuana is not that harmful. Cigarettes kill. Sometimes these results have helped develop good policy. Other times they were ignored.
Saying CO2 is a problem is bound to become much more political. How does that have any effect on the science? It doesn’t.
The noise around a subject can be a measure of the subject’s importance. It doesn’t translate into some sort of useful truth measure.
Saying CO2 is a problem is bound to become much more political. How does that have any effect on the science? It doesn’t.
Of course it does. Science is predicated on scientists practicing honestly. If scientists deliberately suppress disconfirmatory data, then peer review and reproducibility constraints won’t mean anything. (And no I’m not addressing climatology here, just making a general point.)
This does not mean you must assign a low probability to the science. It just means that this particular feature attenuates the odds you assign to it.
Remember: The fact that a theory is good (high probability) does not mean everything about it must be evidence of its credibility!
You just confirm my point. The very fact that you use phrases like “policy implications of climate science”, and “subject’s ideological enemies” shows it’s a highly politicized field. You wouldn’t say “policy implications of quantum physics” or “chemistry’s ideological enemies”.
In case you didn’t follow Climategate, it look that scientists from East Anglia University engaged in politics a lot, including dirty politics; and they were nothing like neutral scientists merely seeking the truth and letting others deal with policy. You may find their actions warranted due to some greater good, or not, but it’s not normal scientific practice, and I’d be willing to bet against pretty high rates that you would not find anything like that on any evolutionary biology department.
That doesn’t mean their findings are wrong. There are plenty of highly politicized issues where the mainstream is right or mostly right, but this rate is significantly lower than for non-politicized science. For example mainstream accounts of histories of most nations tend to be strongly whitewashed, as it’s politically convenient. They are mostly accurate when it comes to events, but you can be fairly sure there are some systemic distortions. That’s the reference class in which I put climate science—most likely right on main points, most likely with significant distortions, and with non-negligible chance of being entirely wrong.
On the other hand the moment climate scientists switch from talking about climate to talking about policy or impact of climate change of human well-being, I estimate that they’re almost certainly wrong. There is no reference class I can think of which suggests otherwise, and the closest reference class of Doomsday predictors has just this kind of track record.
If you want some more, I did blog a bit about climate change recently: 1, 2, 3.
Look, when you are sure you are right everything confirms your belief.
Who are these ‘neutral scientists’? When did climate scientists leave this class? What expert would just cede policy considerations to non-experts? I hope this class of people is a rare breed.
Climate science has obvious policy implications since CO2 is the problem.
Other sciences have had results that have clear policy implications. CFCs were bad. Marijuana is not that harmful. Cigarettes kill. Sometimes these results have helped develop good policy. Other times they were ignored.
Saying CO2 is a problem is bound to become much more political. How does that have any effect on the science? It doesn’t.
The noise around a subject can be a measure of the subject’s importance. It doesn’t translate into some sort of useful truth measure.
Of course it does. Science is predicated on scientists practicing honestly. If scientists deliberately suppress disconfirmatory data, then peer review and reproducibility constraints won’t mean anything. (And no I’m not addressing climatology here, just making a general point.)
This does not mean you must assign a low probability to the science. It just means that this particular feature attenuates the odds you assign to it.
Remember: The fact that a theory is good (high probability) does not mean everything about it must be evidence of its credibility!
One of these is significantly less certain than the other two, IMHO.