Sociopath Community

AliceInWonderland said: 

Inquirer said: 

AliceInWonderland said: 

Inquirer said: 

AliceInWonderland said: 

I will say this topic is more contentious than a lot of people lead on, and I mean it as a scientific topic purely.

Contentious in what way?

The inference one should make from the fact that anthropological climate change is, imo, factually real. 

For instance, I suggesting reading into the debate between Dr.Karoly and Dr.Happer, both respected scientists in this realm of study, whom disagree on the effects of climate change. I have found many respectable physicists, chemists, and climatologists in both camps so it's really an interesting debate. Both do not deny the reality of climate change, they merely disagree about the inferences one can make about that reality.

I checked their debate (plus a bunch of other things Happer has said) and I am not sure I'd use the word "merely" lol. He seems to believe more CO2 is almost solely a good thing for humanity because we can never release enough to actually go beyond 2C. That's not a conservative take on established climate consensus, it's basically a denial of it. He also strikes me as disingenuous in how he presents data and highlights "gotchas", like claiming the IPCC purposely hid the Medieval Warm Period from their later reports or that 'Climategate' proves scientists are part of a conspiracy. Here's a list of 'myths' Happer has argued and here's an article of his with commentary from someone who disagrees with him. 

It was interesting reading the debate on whether a CO2 increase below 2C would be beneficial though. If not for the feedback loops and the continued greenhouse gas emission buildup we might actually want a slightly higher CO2 level in the atmosphere.

I am already aware of the links you've posted and previously read through them, neither were convincing arguing against his points and skepticalsceince as the project it is is honestly a joke. 

Individuals such as Happer and Dyson know this area of study well, they have seen the same data as everyone else and understand it well along with what may be inferred from it. These are two physicists that revolutionized their own sciences, Dyson in mathematics and QM and Happer in optics, so they are more than capable of rigorous inference - but that's just it isn't it those inferences must be rigorous.  

What issues do you take with the arguments against them, though?  This makes it sound like you're just appealing to authority.  Selectively.

  Thank you for drawing my attention to this Inq. 

QuietBeef said: 

AliceInWonderland said: 

I checked their debate (plus a bunch of other things Happer has said) and I am not sure I'd use the word "merely" lol. He seems to believe more CO2 is almost solely a good thing for humanity because we can never release enough to actually go beyond 2C. That's not a conservative take on established climate consensus, it's basically a denial of it. He also strikes me as disingenuous in how he presents data and highlights "gotchas", like claiming the IPCC purposely hid the Medieval Warm Period from their later reports or that 'Climategate' proves scientists are part of a conspiracy. Here's a list of 'myths' Happer has argued and here's an article of his with commentary from someone who disagrees with him. 

It was interesting reading the debate on whether a CO2 increase below 2C would be beneficial though. If not for the feedback loops and the continued greenhouse gas emission buildup we might actually want a slightly higher CO2 level in the atmosphere.

I am already aware of the links you've posted and previously read through them, neither were convincing arguing against his points and skepticalsceince as the project it is is honestly a joke. 

Individuals such as Happer and Dyson know this area of study well, they have seen the same data as everyone else and understand it well along with what may be inferred from it. These are two physicists that revolutionized their own sciences, Dyson in mathematics and QM and Happer in optics, so they are more than capable of rigorous inference - but that's just it isn't it those inferences must be rigorous.  

What issues do you take with the arguments against them, though? 

I take no issues with arguments whichever way in so far as they are rational in the material sense, the reality is that there are multiple sides of the debate which have adequate evidence and reason to believe what they believe.

I can site endless papers from all sides of the discussion whom fundamentally have the same hypothesis, although not always, and merely disagree with cause and effects. All of these individuals/groups have adequate data and sufficient reason to have some belief in their hypothesis and as such should be taken seriously. 

QuietBeef said:

This makes it sound like you're just appealing to authority.  Selectively.

I in fact do not believe in authority when it comes to scientific inquiry beyond its capacity to provide resources to the scientifically minded. 

I do not believe necessarily in any one of these hypothesis do to the disputed nature of most studies and as such have not selected anything, instead I have acknowledged the diverse set of hypothesis which can be viewed as valid or legitimate in so far as they meet the criteria of what may be deemed scientific and rational. 

I appeal to the rejection of media and politics ruling over not only scientific opinion but even more so over what can be considered valid on the grounds of an established accepted 'canon'. It not only belittles the scientific process but more over can cause it great harm as it oversimplifies subjects as complex and in their infancy as Climate Physics to a set of socially acceptable axioms. 

As an added note, I brought up Dyson and Happer not because I believe them specifically but merely to reveal that one of the stated conical axioms 'Anthropogenic Climate change can not be disputed' is fundamentally incorrect as the actual hypothesis has not only been disputed but is being disputed by some of the greatest scientists of the 20th century (Happer and Dyson fall into this camp easily) but also many more at the highest research institutions on Earth. I like making this point because those who make this point are almost always appealing to authority given they have merely accepted X group beliefs Y and so I will believe Y because of X. That is an appeal to authority, the point of tension is that appealing to authority will not reveal truth necessarily. By making this point implicitly you subvert the foundation of that axiom and reveal its flaw, data and reason have greater weight than any number of scientists whom have a specific belief. 

AliceInWonderland said: 

QuietBeef said: 

What issues do you take with the arguments against them, though? 

I take no issues with arguments whichever way in so far as they are rational in the material sense, the reality is that there are multiple sides of the debate which have adequate evidence and reason to believe what they believe.

You've said I committed a fallacy by using that site, called it a joke and said no arguments they made were convincing to you. So what specifically do you think is wrong about the arguments/links I posted?

QuietBeef said:

This makes it sound like you're just appealing to authority.  Selectively.

I in fact do not believe in authority when it comes to scientific inquiry beyond its capacity to provide resources to the scientifically minded.

In an ideal world we'd all have the knowledge, time and resources to empirically fact-check every scientific experiment or calculation ourselves before we pick a side but this is simply unfeasible. The next best thing for a layman person to do is, in my opinion, to read up on the material and author in question and check what the general scientific consensus is. To that end I'd argue that if Happer makes strangely nonsensical or suspiciously biased arguments in the same breath as complicated calculations of cooling/doubling effects that go against the scientific consensus (and that I can't independently verify) then it's reasonable to be wary about his findings.

So what exactly is your point? That we shouldn't distrust Happer unless we can personally debunk everything he says?

You guys will all see what will happen as this gets to progressively higher courts. Right now they are “throwing it all at the wall and seeing what sticks”. Anything that sticks will stick, while anything that doesn’t stick may be challenged in a higher court. Everything is still local.

Chapo said: 

You guys will all see what will happen as this gets to progressively higher courts.

Inquirer said: 

AliceInWonderland said: 

QuietBeef said: 

What issues do you take with the arguments against them, though? 

I take no issues with arguments whichever way in so far as they are rational in the material sense, the reality is that there are multiple sides of the debate which have adequate evidence and reason to believe what they believe.

You've said I committed a fallacy by using that site, called it a joke and said no arguments they made were convincing to you. So what specifically do you think is wrong about the arguments/links I posted?

If you mean by fallacy that you've made some statement that is untrue and treated it as mater of fact, sure.

In so far as it what is wrong, (1) it alludes to you missing the point and (2) that source treats a number of propositions as myths. 

You've missed the point in so far as that my argument is that climatology is a very debatable subject - that is the extent of my claim. I provided two individuals whom are well known and world renown for their reason and contributions to science (Happer for instance spend a lot of time working with CO2 and it's thermal qualities) who fundamentally disagree with a number of other good scientists about a number of things in Climate physics. There very existence and opinions explicitly reveal that the subject matter is debatable given it is being debated. 

Now we can forgo that and talk about your source which I believe is a separate argument but one I've certainly engaged myself in. I view a source like that as a joke because it treats valid propositions as 'myths' - this very language is an extreme form of Ad hominem. That's only part of it though, the explanations given are built on a number of assumptions that are also dubious and not actually confirmed, as such they have massive weak points and cannot be confidently viewed as objectively proving these 'myths' incorrect. Hence, what is laughable is the same could be done to their own propositions, we could break their statements down to the assumptions they rely on, reveal that those assumptions are by no means proven to be objectively factual and as such make all conjectures implied by the unproven assumption uncertain. 

Now, if you want to debate climatology and Physics and its foundations we can do that now, but that was never my point as I only wanted to point out its debatable nature. Perhaps you will only accept it as debatable if you have a rigorous debate about it, though. 

QuietBeef said:

This makes it sound like you're just appealing to authority.  Selectively.

I in fact do not believe in authority when it comes to scientific inquiry beyond its capacity to provide resources to the scientifically minded.

In an ideal world we'd all have the knowledge, time and resources to empirically fact-check every scientific experiment or calculation ourselves before we pick a side but this is simply unfeasible. The next best thing for a layman person to do is, in my opinion, to read up on the material and author in question and check what the general scientific consensus is. To that end I'd argue that if Happer makes strangely nonsensical or suspiciously biased arguments in the same breath as complicated calculations of cooling/doubling effects that go against the scientific consensus (and that I can't independently verify) then it's reasonable to be wary about his findings.

If that's how you confirm a hypothesis so be it, but that is not scientific. It is also a method that has led us astray several times, my favorite instances being the work of Faraday and Boltzman. By your reasoning you would not have accepted their hypothesis on the merit of the hypothesis itself a long with the factual evidence, instead you would have followed the rest of the scientific community. 

So I accept your process but I cannot use it because it is unscientific. I look at hypothesis, I understand it, I look at data, and I judge the merit of a hypothesis based on data. That is my process. 

As for being skeptical of Happer, yes, me too. He brings up very good points and spent his career studying thermal properties of energy bands for co2 along with their photon emission - so as for the nature of thermal qualities of co2 he's without a doabt an expert given he is a pioneer in the field - but when introducing that singular object with specific attributes into a system of objects with their own attributes things can be expected to change with the added complexity derived from relations and interactions between the attributes of those objects. 

So what exactly is your point? That we shouldn't distrust Happer unless we can personally debunk everything he says?

No, that we shouldn't dismiss Happer unless we can debunk everything he says. 

Chapo said: 

You guys will all see what will happen as this gets to progressively higher courts. Right now they are “throwing it all at the wall and seeing what sticks”. Anything that sticks will stick, while anything that doesn’t stick may be challenged in a higher court. Everything is still local.

This is how I see it as well. I lost interest after the recounts and tuned out from what's been going on. There's protocol to make sure an election is fair, the process is being followed in the courts. Either something happens or nothing happens. We'll see when it's time.

Tryptamine said: 

Either something happens or nothing happens. We'll see when it's time.

That's such a sad way of looking at it, there's no sense of odds other than the binary 50/50 to factor into it. 

Turncoat said: 

Tryptamine said: 

Either something happens or nothing happens. We'll see when it's time.

That's such a sad way of looking at it, there's no sense of odds other than the binary 50/50 to factor into it. 

I just accept that the election is out of my hands and that I'm not privy to the pertinent information that may or may not exist.

AliceInWonderland said: 

You've missed the point in so far as that my argument is that climatology is a very debatable subject - that is the extent of my claim.

Fair enough. I'm not disputing that climatology can be debated scientifically, nor that there are lots of unknowns left to figure out. My point was that the main pillars of our understanding of it all (ie. that there is an overwhelming consensus behind anthropological climate change) makes it so that the point isn't really up for debate when it comes to the overarching narrative. That's also where the skepticalscience "myths" come into play. Happer doesn't simply argue a very narrow scientific point, he's also pushing a much broader political agenda.

Putting a definition to "consensus" or "very debatable" is also always going to remain subjective. The best way to gauge it is, I think, to check how many respectable scientists have gone against the consensus that climate change is real, anthropological and damaging. One person doing it outside of a peer-reviewed paper doesn't turn the whole field contentious. But perhaps you mean that as long as people can disagree on things within climatology it's very debatable?

 I view a source like that as a joke because it treats valid propositions as 'myths' - this very language is an extreme form of Ad hominem. That's only part of it though, the explanations given are built on a number of assumptions that are also dubious and not actually confirmed, as such they have massive weak points and cannot be confidently viewed as objectively proving these 'myths' incorrect. Hence, what is laughable is the same could be done to their own propositions, we could break their statements down to the assumptions they rely on, reveal that those assumptions are by no means proven to be objectively factual and as such make all conjectures implied by the unproven assumption uncertain.

Could you give me examples?

Now, if you want to debate climatology and Physics and its foundations we can do that now, but that was never my point as I only wanted to point out its debatable nature. Perhaps you will only accept it as debatable if you have a rigorous debate about it, though.

Having a rigorous debate on it isn't necessary. I'm not sure I'm even knowledgeable enough to properly have one. I would like to hear your view though, if you have one.

If that's how you confirm a hypothesis so be it, but that is not scientific. It is also a method that has led us astray several times, my favorite instances being the work of Faraday and Boltzman. By your reasoning you would not have accepted their hypothesis on the merit of the hypothesis itself a long with the factual evidence, instead you would have followed the rest of the scientific community.

It's not how I confirm a hypothesis purely scientifically, it's how I deal with the practical implications of policy and at what point a layman can feel secure enough to form a tentative opinion of their own.

So what exactly is your point? That we shouldn't distrust Happer unless we can personally debunk everything he says?

No, that we shouldn't dismiss Happer unless we can debunk everything he says. 

I think we can dismiss Happer far sooner than that as a person/narrative without dismissing the few good arguments he may have.