Comment by misslibby | Hacker News Reader

Comment by misslibby | Hacker News Reader

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"And this is just the measurements part: There is also the problem of predatory journals etc etc. - all of these can skew the "consensus" if you don't account for them."

But doesn't this very sentence from you imply that there is no such consensus as you claim? Apparently there are lots of publications that disagree, so where do you get your consensus from?

" the composition of the field is always changing to some degree and (2) you will never get all scientists to tell you their opinion at the same point in time"

That is why I don't care about a "consensus" - science is not a democracy. I care about verifiable facts, and open discussion.

"So I'm pretty convinced that your argument of a pure, "individually verifiable" science is desirable, but has never existed and never will."

I am not saying that science should output 100% true facts only. Everything only has probabilities. I am saying that scientific output should be verifiable by other people. Scientific facts are not determined in a democratic way, they already exist and are only being discovered.

> Everything only has probabilities.

But that does not mean that when there are two possible outcomes that these carry equal weight: the evidence for human influenced climate is so vast and so well researched that it would take an absolute miracle to displace it at this point.

> I am saying that scientific output should be verifiable by other people.

It is. Reproducibility and peer review are part and parcel of science and it is always done by other people than the ones involved in the original research.

But to you 'other people' may include people that have not studied the subject matter and that are not capable of following the arguments. Those people will end up having to pick a side, just like you have done, you are on the side of the 0.1% versus the 99.9%, likely because that decision works better for you in some way or other. But that does not make you a scientist any more than it makes me one. And I'll throw my lot in with the 99.9%, not because it makes my life any easier but simply because that makes good sense.

" the evidence for human influenced climate is so vast and so well researched that it would take an absolute miracle to displace it at this point."

Even now there are various scenarios, not a single consensus. And I rather doubt that you personally have verified the climate science, so what makes you so sure?

Btw it is not about humans influencing climate (of course they do), but about the doomsday scenarios.

"Reproducibility and peer review are part and parcel of science and it is always done by other people than the ones involved in the original research."

Peer review is not a a guarantee for good science, it was invented for the government grant system. Sorry if people call on the peer review system, to me it just shows they are delusional about the workings of the science systems in most places.

"But to you 'other people' may include people that have not studied the subject matter and that are not capable of following the arguments"

Everybody can study the subject matter, that is the thing. It is you who claims only certain people of your choosing are capable of doing so.

"And I'll throw my lot in with the 99.9%, not because it makes my life any easier but simply because that makes good sense."

Do you even know what the 99.9% say? You can check how that number was derived - it was people evaluating abstracts and judging whether those papers agree that humans affect climate. It doesn't say everybody agrees on the doomsday scenarios.

> And I rather doubt that you personally have verified the climate science, so what makes you so sure?

I also read that report, but I got a different vibe from it than you did. What I read was a bunch of settled stuff, a bunch of stuff where the results are predictable but the exact circumstances are not and a bunch of still open stuff requiring more research hopefully resulting in being able to settle other questions. It's pretty much like any other scientific report that I've read with the difference that it spans the globe.

The tricky bit is that the countries that are doing the least to help stave this off are also the ones best positioned to ride it out unless we end up with one of the worst case scenarios.

But locally some countries are already experiencing the first set of symptoms and it isn't pretty. (Notably: the South of Europe and North Africa)

> Btw it is not about humans influencing climate (of course they do), but about the doomsday scenarios.

The doomsday scenarios will come to pass if we don't make some pretty drastic changes. Personally I won't live to see it, but my kids most likely will, even if they're off by a couple of decades.

Because the thing that there is a lot of discussion about is the exact dates, not necessarily on what the consequences are.

Anyway, you seem to have made up your mind on this and I have more important things to do (in the short term...).

"I also read that report, but I got a different vibe from it than you did."

You read the 1000 pages? Respect! But is it even "science" or just a bunch of predictions?

"The doomsday scenarios will come to pass if we don't make some pretty drastic changes."

They won't, and afaik even the IPCC scenarios are not all doomsday scenarios. But there is no point arguing it with true believers.

"But locally some countries are already experiencing the first set of symptoms and it isn't pretty. (Notably: the South of Europe and North Africa)"

Are they? I have asked the question a lot to point out a real climate change impact, and never received an answer. There were answers, but when I looked into it, the real reason was always something else, like drilling wells and depleting the ground water and so on. Non climate change human actions still do enormously more environmental damage than climate change.

Of course if you can claim "it was climate change", especially as a third world country, you are eligible for receiving a lot of monetary compensation. So most articles and claims attach it as a footnote, "also because of climate change".

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