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Comment by roel_v | Hacker News Reader

"Then again, I wasn't asking anybody to bet the economy on my results."

To be fair, no climate scientist is asking anyone to bet the economy on their results, it's the various interest groups that pressure scientists into giving an answer that is less nuanced as they would have liked and then blame them when things go wrong. (at least for the 10 or so I know personally, but I'm pretty sure no others do, either). Actually this is true for all scientists I know in field that have political relevance.

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Publicly available statements and evidence of past behavior has led me to reject my default charitable supposition that climate scientists and interests groups are disjoint sets.

I've attended climate science conferences and worked for years writing code for and with climate scientists. Down in the trenches, pretty much the only thing I saw was scientists interested in accurate results. I don't, however, claim to have worked with nearly everyone in the field. But I do on occasion feel compelled to defend my former coworkers (I work for myself now).

Can you link some examples?

Well I would nuance that, in that there are many interest groups why try to sway public opinion by posing as scientists. Like ANH I write code for and have worked with climate scientists, actual ones who have no real political or financial motivation and just really try to model the world around us as accurately as possible. So I guess it boils down to the definition of 'scientist'. I don't call every quack who get a book on Lulu or marketer who is paid to write scientific-sounding 'position papers' a scientist.

How is that necessarily a charitable supposition? If a scientist believes in his or her research, it would be positively inhuman of them NOT to advocate for the application of it.

This. Especially in a field where, if the questions are to be taken at face value then the results can be incredibly socially important.

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