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Comment by traveler01 | Hacker News Reader

> Thus, I think it is reasonable to rely on the decades of evidence and science that have led to a concensus among the people that spend their entire lifes studying the topic.

That's the thing, I could use the same argument to believe in "god" by saying that priest spend their entire lives studying the matter so I should believe them when they say it exists. Yet I'm an atheist. You see where I'm getting at right?

My entire take on this is that we should really do something about it. Specially since, in the chance they're actually right we'd be both saving the world and improving people's health. Going around in a city with smog is very bad for your lungs.

Edit: Though screwing over the mental health of an entire generation over it might defeat the purpose of "saving the world" or "saving humanity".

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> That's the thing, I could use the same argument to believe in "god" by saying that priest spend their entire lives studying the matter so I should believe them when they say it exists. Yet I'm an atheist. You see where I'm getting at right?

The difference is called "empiricism". God is defined as something supernatural and unexplainable. Science is the opposite. Why do you think this is a good comparison?

You're falling in the assumption that the studies being done are actually right, and I questioned that as well.

It really feels like you are climate change denier trying to make it seem like you're not. It would have to be a massive conspiracy that spans multiple massive fields of science and has hundreds of thousands if not millions of scientists constantly doing something wrong intentionally or not. Your counter point is the equivalent of questioning the theory of relativity because you don't trust the decades worth of proof.

The science behind climate change is simple and more than 90% of the worlds experts in geology, ecology, climatology, oceanography, chemistry, physics, etc all are in agreement that global warming is real and caused by humans. Here's a FAQ from the times if you'd like a reference https://www.nytimes.com/article/climate-change-global-warmin...

I don't see any assumptions in my comment. Where did I make the assumption that "the studies being done are actually right"? If you can show that the existing studies have problems you're free to share those.

But let me ask you this. Can you think of a single thing you can't discard with this logic? One single thing.

Luckily Popper explained to us we have something in science called falsifiability. I suggest you try to falsify one single theory of our current climate science. Or, alternatively, show that any of the theories is unfalsifiable. Just going all Popper on you, because it’s needed.

By the way, much of our previous research on climate science has already been falsified, for them to be substituted for theories which show even stronger evidence for man-made climate change.

> That's the thing, I could use the same argument to believe in "god" by saying that priest spend their entire lives studying the matter

Priests "studying" a fixed text is not at all similar to scientists collecting empirical data, creating falsifiable hypotheses, running predictive simulations built on models derived from that empirical study.

> Though screwing over the mental health of an entire generation over it might defeat the purpose of "saving the world" or "saving humanity".

I don't take issue with that position, although I disagree. I'd say it is worth it.

However, we should consider that the effect of climate change on "the mental health of an entire genration" is perhaps not greater than the effect of e.g., WWI, WWII, or the Cold War. Imagine living under the constant threat of nuclear war.

> Specially since, in the chance they're actually right we'd be both saving the world and improving people's health

It's funny you mention this and the "god" example, and yet you are an atheist. Can't you make the same argument about the existence of God? It might be unlikely that a God exists, but just in case He does, it is infinitely better to be religious. Because you'd end up in hell otherwise.

(This is not my original idea, it was brought up the first time by Blaise Pascal)

Pascal's wager was stupid then and still is stupid.

Pascal's wager only works if you presuppose that gods don't care about beliefs in other gods. What if they are fine with atheists, but despise those who believe in false gods? Even the christian god is described as jealous! So it doesn't seem safe to believe in any god, on account of not angering the "real ones" due to misbelief.

Priests aren't doing science. Scientists have used their approach to truly conclusively prove many things; priests have not. In part by trusting scientists today, we're trusting in a broad institution that has a broad track record of success. Can it get things wrong? Of course. But I think 'science' has earned significant trust (not faith) from its long track record.

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