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Comment by acheron | Hacker News Reader

If you have a problem with the study or methodology, let’s hear it; otherwise, ad hominem attacks don’t add anything to the conversation.

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It is not an ad hominem attack to point out that the source of the information has previously shown to be biased and use monetary incentives to garner outcomes that fit their viewpoints.

You can argue its justified but if its not ad hominem then what is it?

It's ad hominem if you say that the study must be false because the source has a history of sponsoring fabrications which suit it's ideological biases, and that the result here is one which suits those biases.

It's not, OTOH, ad hominem to point out the same fact, for instance, as a caution to those who might uncritically accept the conclusions offered by the source.

It is pointless mudslinging. Every think tank compensates scientists to write policy papers. Somehow the fact that this one was right-wing made it possible to portray the practice as nefarious, whereas when, say, the Center for American Progress compensates left-wing researchers for writing anti-minimum-wage studies that isn't considered newsworthy.

Writing papers that usefully critique the IPCC reports is important and there's nothing wrong with compensating such work. The thing AEI did "wrong" was to cast a wider net in an attempt to find people better capable of doing that. AEI was doing something praiseworthy - trying to find critiques from outside normal places a conservative think tank might look, which might highlight overlooked points of view. If that's wrong, what's the alternative? Only use papers from people you have on salary? Only use papers from people who are so solidly in your own ideological camp they won't run to the Guardian? That's nuts! Shouldn't we WANT any scientists who have reservations about the IPCC conclusions to have an incentive to write papers exploring the question?

I think it's reasonable to be dubious given the source, and for that to be the default position until there is confirmation from other independent sources. That is, it may not be worth the time necessary to figure out whether the results hold up given that there is a prior likelihood of the source intentionally cherry-picking data on one end of the statistical spectrum that supports their agenda.

I mention in a comment above that the underlying source for the data is BP [1], which is also a little suspect, and their description of the methodology [2] is way too slim to be useful for a critique or confirmation of their results.

[1] https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/stat...

[2] https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/en/corporate/pdf/energy-ec...

If we knew everything about how all this was conducted, and had time to understand it all, I would agree.

Or alternately, if this were a logical argument that could be completely divorced from who was saying it, it would be an Ad Hominem fallacy.

But as it stands, when it comes to gathering facts, trust and reputation of the people we're hearing the facts from is paramount. As such Ad Hominem, as it were, is valid.

I'm actually right-of-center myself. I'm scrolling through HN comments here to see what critiques people have of the organization, since I heard they are a right-of-center group and this finding is good for the right-of-center case. (So far they seem okay)

I don't have the required knowledge to form an opinion on the data or methodology, or even on another expert's opinion on those.

But I find it hard to trust the untrustworthy. Personally, I would have appreciated if the title included ", claims an organisation that used to bribe scientists".

In addition, the title is essentially clickbait, a spin on the data that's convenient for the publisher; as other commenters noted, a large absolute decrease of a really large number is still a small relative decrease; and US is still one of the most per capita polluting countries.

I don't want to sound too negative though, I definitely hope the trend continues.

Should we have that included in the title of any large agri-tech or bio-tech company then? Monsanto's bribed scientists... Bayer's bribed scientists... etc. etc. Who hasn't bribed a scientist these days?

Also, the US is now putting out the least CO2 emissions per capita in decades (since the early 60's). So atleast the US is on the right track, as this article rightfully suggests.

Well there's a reason we don't trust corporate funded studies (or, at least, scrutinise them more).

Well yes obviously we should, and many times we do.

There is a reason why papers usually include affiliations and funding sources.

The moment AEI is advocating Natural Gas (a fossil fuel, FYI) and "advanced drilling" technologies, you know they are onto something and it's increasingly clear to the public that methane leaks and the 100x potency as a greenhouse gas is making it a non-option as renewal energy source.

Also, quoting BP, one of the big three oil companies, as the data source for CO2 report is like quoting Philip Morris's research on how smoking affects lung cancer, or quoting Monsanto for resarch on how RoundUp affects human digestive system. You get the idea.

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