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Sunday, September 16, 2018

The noble lie

In this post I'll outline how I approach the global warming controversy. 

1. Appeal is made to "scientific consensus". That's an argument from authority. The argument from authority can be valid or invalid depending on the assumptions. Appeal to scientific consensus in general is fallacious inasmuch as most scientists lack expertise in climatology and atmospheric sciences. 

2. Apropos (1), appeal is made to expert opinion. That, too, is an argument from authority, but a more respectable version. It's often rational to defer to expert opinion. 

Sometimes we defer to expert opinion, not because that's an epistemic virtue, but because it's a practical necessity. There are situations in which deference to expert opinion is a forced option.

3. There are, however, other situations in which we have the luxury of suspending judgment. Just as it's often rational to defer to public opinion, there are other situations in which it's rational to withhold judgment. If I'm unqualified to render an informed judgment on a particular issue, suspending judgment is sometimes the most responsible course of action. Taking drastic actions can be reckless and harmful. 

4. Apropos (3), it isn't a binary choice. It is, for instance, possible to be a global warming skeptic rather than a global warming "denier". And there can be good reasons for skepticism (see below).

5. Proponents of global warming will say the fact that most folks aren't qualified to have an informed opinion on global warming is precisely why they should defer to expert opinion. And, all things being equal, deference to expert opinion is often rational. 

However, the argument from authority crucially depends on trust. It presumes that the experts are acting in good faith. That their stated positions are uncoerced. That their position isn't skewed by an ulterior agenda. 

Unfortunately, there's abundant evidence that "climate science" is heavily politicized. Evidence that scientific dissent is blacklisted. Data is manipulated. Scientific counterevidence is suppressed or destroyed. 

It's no secret that global warming zealotry is the spearhead of an underlying philosophy. Environmentalism is an ideology. A worldview. A secular religion. Environmentalism is hostile to human exceptionalism and anthropocentrism. 

This is a moral crusade. Environmental ethics. "Environmental justice".  

Environmentalists are convinced that "sustainability initiatives" are a good idea even if global warming is bogus. For them, global warming alarmism is a noble lie. Even if the threat is widely exaggerated, that's justified by a larger principle. Global warming alarmism is a means to an end. 

That destroys the prima facie deference to expert opinion. Once we realize that the experts aren't offering disinterested information, it becomes rational to suspend judgment. 

The flip side of expert opinion is the ability to do a snow job on the non-specialist. Because the non-specialist is unqualified to evaluate the evidence, experts can abuse their authority to deceive the public with a blizzard of factoids. 

6. Ironically, the global warming establishment is antithetical to scientific inquiry. Carl Sagan made the optimistic claim that science is self-correcting. However, once the party line gets enacted into law, as official policy, climate science ceases to be a self-correcting process (if it ever was). At that point, scientific scrutiny is criminalized. 

7. The reputed threat of looming environmental catastrophe is not the only threat we need to consider or guard against. Another looming threat is the clear and present danger of totalitarianism. Consider how, under the Obama administration, the EPA abused its mandate. Consider how, during the Obama era, attorneys general were poised to prosecute global warming critics. Consider how the climate science establishment is an arm of the UN (IPCC). Consider how Google censors politically incorrect searches, which makes it increasingly impossible for the general public to fact-check global warming and other political orthodoxies of the liberal establishment. 

In our own time, totalitarianism, whether secular or Islamic, poses a far greater threat to the quality of life than global warming. Totalitarianism, whether secular or Islamic, poses a far more verifiable threat to the quality of life than global warming. 

Because I'm not qualified to make an informed judgment on global warming, I'm a global warming skeptic. I withhold judgment.

Given a choice between the hypothetical threat of global warming and the existential threat of totalitarianism, I prioritize opposition to totalitarianism. And not coincidentally, global warming zealots are totalitarians. 

22 comments:

  1. Ummm okay ignoring your Alex Joneesque conspiracy mongering, you do know that the percent of scientists who agree with global warming rises the more their field of expertise actually relates to climate science. The consensus among scientists who aren't directly affiliated with climate science is around 80 but among actual climate scientists with relevant expertise it's around 97 percent.

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    1. rolo

      "Ummm okay ignoring your Alex Joneesque conspiracy mongering,"

      Ummm okay ignoring your guilt by association fallacy.

      "you do know that the percent of scientists who agree with global warming rises the more their field of expertise actually relates to climate science. The consensus among scientists who aren't directly affiliated with climate science is around 80 but among actual climate scientists with relevant expertise it's around 97 percent."

      Same could be said about scientists and neo-Darwinism. The closer one approaches to evolutionary biology, the higher the percentage of those who subscribe to neo-Darwinism.

      Also, you're ignoring potential confounding variables. It's plausible there's a third possibility that encompasses and explains both (e.g. liberal secularism).

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    2. I didn't appeal to a conspiracy. Everything I said is right out in the open.

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    3. Regarding the mechanically parroted 97% figure:

      https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexepstein/2015/01/06/97-of-climate-scientists-agree-is-100-wrong/#1493a03a3f9f

      https://www.forbes.com/sites/uhenergy/2016/12/14/fact-checking-the-97-consensus-on-anthropogenic-climate-change/#26d5e8f41157

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  2. Also your post about Hinger Stones still shows you're an idiot when it comes to the subject. Not letting that go.

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    1. rolo

      "Also your post about Hinger Stones still shows you're an idiot when it comes to the subject. Not letting that go."

      And your performance in Steve's Hunger Stones post and this post shows all you do is call people and positions names (e.g. "idiot", "absolutely stupid", being skeptical about climate change is like believing in "alchemy" rather than chemistry). However, you never step up to offer any arguments or evidence. You just tell people to do their homework.

      In short, you call people names, but when pressed for arguments, you tell them to do their own homework. Your behavior is no different than what village atheists typically do. There are reasonable and rational people who argue for climate change, but you're irrational and unreasonable. You're the village idiot of climate change.

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    2. rolo,

      Where did you refute the principle that the water level of a body of water a river empties into can affect the water level of the river?

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    3. Steve you know you wrote that post about hunger stones as if it was some obvious evidence against sea level rise and climate change but as other commenters have pointed out it simply isn't because the rivers in question in the hunger stones story wouldn't be affected by sea level rise or at least not enough to counter the drop in rainfall in the local area.

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  3. Conspiracy theories are often not needed to explain institutional malfeasance. Plain old groupthink can be at work.

    Also: Climategate was a real thing. Not anywhere on the level as an Alex Jones conspiracy theory.

    One important issue is whether climatology is mature and competent as a field to underwrite the claims of the Warmists. Some scientific fields are simply too young to issue confident claims about certain issues. They may even be unable, in principle, to come to certain conclusions when chaotic, hyper-complex systems are in play.

    See, for instance, this article: https://pjmedia.com/blog/fakegate-cant-hide-this-decline/

    "As someone who has done complex modeling and computer coding myself, I deny that we understand the complex and chaotic interactions of the atmosphere, oceans and solar and other inputs sufficiently to model them with any confidence into the future, and I deny that it is unreasonable and unscientific to think that those who believe they do have such understanding suffer from hubris"

    Lastly, some folks like Alex Epstein have argued that even if CAGW is true, the logical solution is not to roll back society to the pre-Industrial 18th and 19th century, and trade in our cars for the horse and buggy. Rather, we should increase our energy resources in order to minimize society's exposure to climate hazards. We should combat it with cheap, reliable energy - which is an argument for the expamded use of fossil fuels.

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    1. Great points.

      As an aside, in the earlier post, I said:

      I suspect much of the debate over man-made climate change will be resolved when there's a widely used clean renewable energy source over and against using the combustion of fossil fuels, which are the primary contributors to greenhouse gases.

      At least that's my understanding, but since I'm no engineer like you are, I could well be mistaken.

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    2. Climategate is basically a made up conspiracy. None of the emails disprove the objective evidence for climate change and none of them show any world wide conspiracy among scientists. You guys are speaking out of your behinds.

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    3. Rolo talks about Climategate the way Catholic apologists talk about the abuse scandal. The same unfalsifiable fideism.

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    4. The evidence for (man-made) climate change is not objective. The evidence is interpreted, the conclusions are inferred. No one observed CO2 to raise the temperature on the planet and change the climate.

      Obviously this does not mean that the interpretation or conclusion is wrong, but it is not a "factuality".

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    5. Okay Steve point to any actual emails of the ones leaked that in any way shape or form show that there was wrongdoing among the scientists or that there is some sort of conspiracy. Please I dare you.

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    6. Conce

      Ummm post modern much?

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    7. What is post modern is to confuse inferences with objective evidence.

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  4. How to climate science:

    1) Observe the weather.
    2) Blame Global Warming.
    3) Profit.

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    1. That is most certainly not how climate science is done. I shouldn't even have to refute what you said.

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    2. Rolo,
      You are a complete idiot.

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    3. Explain please. As said climate scientist do more than just stand outside and observe the weather. You have no understanding of what a climate scientist or any scientist does.

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    4. Man, I severely maligned idiots by comparing them to rolo. I don't think I can forgive myself for the slight.

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