Comment by apo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by apo | Hacker News Reader

The problem with many discussions around global warming is not scientific, but cultural. Advocates of change often take a sanctimonious attitude toward anyone expressing the slightest doubt.

Have a look at the episodes of the Netflix series "Bill Nye Saves the World" on climate change. If you can watch without cringing, congratulations. I can't. Or take this interview Nye did with Tucker Carlsen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qN5L2q6hfWo

Nye, and those who share his intolerant attitude toward justified skepticism do their cause more harm than good.

Every hypothesis should be questioned. The more sweeping the claims, the more pointed the questioning should be. Science is not immune to groupthink. The problem is magnified when a scientific hypothesis takes on a political dimension.

Take this quote from the article:

Climate has always been changing, but humans are now the principal drive for climate change, overwhelming natural climate variability.

I challenge any reader of the article to find a clear, logical, undeniable chain of evidence from hypothesis to the conclusion that humans are responsible for rising planet temperatures.

Challenge accepted. Proof that humans are responsible for rising planet temperatures: https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/. Follow the references.

"every hypothesis should be questioned."

It is, constantly, literally on a daily basis. That's how we know.

What does pop culture (Bill Nye) has anything to do with this.

Also many of us are a bit beyond just theoretical discussions. It's 2018. We are increasingly affected by climate change to the point that many of us are packing, because the shit already hit the fan. What's a fun theoretical discussion for you (at the moment) is actually life and death for many.

Thanks for the link and response, but I was talking about evidence in the OP article. Like far too many pieces, it fails to highlight the evidence between human activity and rising temps, taking it instead as an article of faith.

Even the link you gave fails to enumerate the evidence for a human cause, and itself links to another article.

I realize that some have made up their minds, but the extraordinary claim of a mainly human cause requires extraordinary evidence. And that evidence is hardly discussed, nor are alternative hypotheses given their due.

This is the problem I'm trying to highlight. The discussion has veered from scientific to religious.

If this was 1980, then I'd be right with you. But it's 2018.

We've had 40 years of unmistakable data, and at this point, anyone pushing this "the science isn't settled" talking point – adopted from the tobacco industry – either has a vested interest in denialism or simply falls really far left on the Dunning-Kruger curve.

Indeed it's 2018. The shit already hit the fan. We suffer unsustainable ecosystem losses on a daily basis.

Who cares what Bill Nye says or thinks.

Science has very few recognizable public faces. Nye, and Niel Tyson are two of them.

When these people say something about science, for better or worse, they speaks for science in many people's minds.

A lot of people would take advice from someone who played a doctor on tv. Bill Nye is a childrens entertainer. His opinions I’m sure are not well founded, but it simply doesn’t matter. His opinion either way should be totally irrelevant to your judgment of the case.

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