The claim of a 97% consensus on global warming does not stand up (2014)

theguardian.com

11 points·akvadrako··7 comments

Unsurprisingly, Bjørn Lomborg is a fan of the author of the piece, Richard Tol.

I mean, when I want advice on climate science, I _definitely_ turn to people with PhDs in political science and economics.

Same as when I want to investigate that weird hacking cough I have, I ask a dentist.

At least the dentist needs to go through medical school, so he should be able to help you.

Dental school isn’t medical school. Different curricula.

Yes, he could tell you to go see a doctor.

> Science is not a set of results. Science is a method. If the method is wrong, the results are

This much is true no matter what your discipline is. GIGO - garbage in, garbage out.

Of course, if you feel you have to attack the article regardless, well... shrug go ahead. You wouldn't be the first nor the 100th to do his. But the real result is just making matters more tribal, polarized and borderline religious. Mudding the waters. But yeah, you do you.

Economists and the scientific method are very poorly acquainted.

It's probably a problem of feedback. Seems tempting to blame people, but it's unlikely all mathematicians and physicists are upstanding scientists while economists and psychologists are secretly cheaters. It's more likely that in some fields you get faster and better feedback, while in others it's a lot more fuzzy and prone to interpretation. Which just makes it a harder problem, doesn't make them worse scientists.

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