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Comment by crygin | Hacker News Reader

Ugh. This is exactly the type of poorly-informed response you generally get when people attempt to "read the data" for themselves with little to no understanding of the science behind it. Seems to be a lot of that going around HN today.

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Please try to be specific in your criticism. What misunderstanding does the above poster have about the science or the data?

Well, for one, that their uneducated skim through the IPCC report found a mistake which thousands of qualified scientists had missed, one so fundamental that it undermines all of the rest of the work in the report and the conclusions it leads to.

The scientists say so, therefore the commenter is wrong? This still doesn't explain why the above is wrong. Attacking the premises of an argument is sound logic, and should be welcome. Ad hominem arguments should be called out.

It's exacerbated when it's less someone reading it for themselves, than reading it in a blog post by someone who's motivated to try to strip context and mislead about results.

Your comment reminds me how the Catholic Church treated the Bible during the Middle Ages (environmentalism runs so parallel to religion it's uncanny).

The clergy would not let lay people read the Bible themselves, claiming there are "poorly-informed responses you get when people attempt to read the scripture for themselves with little to no understanding of the theology behind it."

"Just trust us," they said, "we will interpret it for you and tell you how to live accordingly."

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