Their rhetorical strategy only flies if you’re inclined not to believe in climate change…
> Far more often the report follows a familiar pattern, wrote Ben Sanderson, a climate scientist at CICERO, a Norwegian climate research institute, on Bluesky. “Establish a contrarian position, cherry pick evidence to support that position, then claim that this position is under-represented in climate literature.”
>“Establish a contrarian position, cherry pick evidence to support that position, then claim that this position is under-represented in climate literature.”
I've always said that you can prove anything if you ignore enough data or facts. It's the foundation for all propaganda campaigns - cherry-pick the things that fit the message you want to convey and act like the overwhelming evidence against it doesn't exist. If you can't find anything to serve as a factual basis just invent something and repeat it to your audience, loudly if necessary, until that is the only thing they remember about their interaction with you.
But tvtropes seem to think that they are equally absurd
>It's important to note that, despite the trope's name, the Anti-Nihilist is still a nihilist. A character who is optimistic and life affirming and isn't a nihilist would likely be listed under Silly Rabbit, Cynicism Is for Losers!
Fwiw, Terry Pratchett and the recs from this thread
often manage to be fun and funny without being (explicitly?) nihilist. Suggestions for other role models? Especially appreciated would be political writers.. (in the above thread, they came close with "sex similes")
The clowns don't even understand they are clowns. Firing the chief of BLS for weak employment numbers ... it is like beating thermometer for showing unpleasant temperature and going out and finding a different thermometer which would show more pleasant numbers.
It's contrarian when you point out that the vast majority of the modeling, and data collection practices, have been either inaccurate or manipulated.
NOAA has repeatedly published data from weather stations located next to heat sources, despite claiming to account for it. They also still collect readings using pencil and snail mail in some cases.
Additionally, the community of climate researchers routinely ignore data that goes against the grain, either by smoothing using opaque algorithms or by ignoring it altogether (like hot weather reports from the 18/1900s published in newspapers, some of which exceeded 'maximum recorded temperatures' in the last 20 years).
> NOAA has repeatedly published data from weather stations located next to heat sources
Google "site:realclimate.org weather station heat island" - you will find discussions going back to 2004. This is a well known problem, which climate science has acknowledged and corrected for, since a long time before Trump was a thing.
Go ahead, just show us that alternative model and we test how its predictions fare with past and future data. Oh but you won't do that, because making actual predictions and representing reality isn't really the goal, right?
I can appreciate that scientists in the field are fighting the good fight and picking it apart but it seems
that this is just PhD nerd sniping. Designed specifically to get the world to waste their time going um actually… to a bad faith publication that the people publishing it and the people who will ultimately cite it to justify what they were going to do anyway didn't even believe in the first place. Preying on the, if we're honest left tendency, to believe that truth and facts prevail over power structures and if we just prove that they're wrong they'll be forced to… something. It's a great trick creating a simulacrum of scientific inquiry—literal hopium being provided to their opponents to give the illusion of Doing Something instead of working on challenging the power structures that are the real driving force.
Contrarian work does fine if it's solid and based in reality. It's just that most contrarian work is crap and it's hard to get funding for junk science. You'd have a hard time finding funding for work on phrenology. Doesn't mean it's being artificially suppressed.
> He later became known as a skeptic on climate change, publishing the book Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn't, and Why It Matters, which was widely condemned for promoting climate denial.
“Climate Denial” is shorthand for anyone who is contrarian to the consensus, no? Or can you provide a single person who opposes the consensus who isn’t labeled the same?
Regardless. It seems like it's less a detailed breakdown of the science and more a pedantic argument about the meaning of science being settled. There's virtually no expert who would argue we know everything there is to know about climate science so it seems the entire book is a refutation of a straw man.
The disconnect seems to be that the political apparatus seems to characterize these “no expert who would argue we know everything there is to know about climate science” folks as “experts who argue that we know everything there is to know about climate science” folks.
Hence the whole “settled science” BS talking point.
The IPCC is a political organization, not a scientific one. They have a dismal record for the accuracy of their predictions, and lack consistency in data they've released that overlaps their previous data releases.
Their rhetorical strategy only flies if you’re inclined not to believe in climate change…
> Far more often the report follows a familiar pattern, wrote Ben Sanderson, a climate scientist at CICERO, a Norwegian climate research institute, on Bluesky. “Establish a contrarian position, cherry pick evidence to support that position, then claim that this position is under-represented in climate literature.”
>“Establish a contrarian position, cherry pick evidence to support that position, then claim that this position is under-represented in climate literature.”
I've always said that you can prove anything if you ignore enough data or facts. It's the foundation for all propaganda campaigns - cherry-pick the things that fit the message you want to convey and act like the overwhelming evidence against it doesn't exist. If you can't find anything to serve as a factual basis just invent something and repeat it to your audience, loudly if necessary, until that is the only thing they remember about their interaction with you.
If you adopt an upbeat fatalistic attitude, there's at least humor to be found in letting clowns do their thing.
Absurd nihilism is a phrase I heard I really like. We might as well have fun while making their life as hard as possible.
There are additional nihilist options
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheAntiNihilist
But tvtropes seem to think that they are equally absurd
>It's important to note that, despite the trope's name, the Anti-Nihilist is still a nihilist. A character who is optimistic and life affirming and isn't a nihilist would likely be listed under Silly Rabbit, Cynicism Is for Losers!
Fwiw, Terry Pratchett and the recs from this thread
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44736668
often manage to be fun and funny without being (explicitly?) nihilist. Suggestions for other role models? Especially appreciated would be political writers.. (in the above thread, they came close with "sex similes")
>clowns do their thing
The clowns don't even understand they are clowns. Firing the chief of BLS for weak employment numbers ... it is like beating thermometer for showing unpleasant temperature and going out and finding a different thermometer which would show more pleasant numbers.
I'm guessing that here, "contrarian" means "lying".
It's contrarian when you point out that the vast majority of the modeling, and data collection practices, have been either inaccurate or manipulated.
NOAA has repeatedly published data from weather stations located next to heat sources, despite claiming to account for it. They also still collect readings using pencil and snail mail in some cases.
Additionally, the community of climate researchers routinely ignore data that goes against the grain, either by smoothing using opaque algorithms or by ignoring it altogether (like hot weather reports from the 18/1900s published in newspapers, some of which exceeded 'maximum recorded temperatures' in the last 20 years).
> NOAA has repeatedly published data from weather stations located next to heat sources
Google "site:realclimate.org weather station heat island" - you will find discussions going back to 2004. This is a well known problem, which climate science has acknowledged and corrected for, since a long time before Trump was a thing.
Could you provide sources?
Go ahead, just show us that alternative model and we test how its predictions fare with past and future data. Oh but you won't do that, because making actual predictions and representing reality isn't really the goal, right?
Much easier to bathe in rethorical figures.
I can appreciate that scientists in the field are fighting the good fight and picking it apart but it seems that this is just PhD nerd sniping. Designed specifically to get the world to waste their time going um actually… to a bad faith publication that the people publishing it and the people who will ultimately cite it to justify what they were going to do anyway didn't even believe in the first place. Preying on the, if we're honest left tendency, to believe that truth and facts prevail over power structures and if we just prove that they're wrong they'll be forced to… something. It's a great trick creating a simulacrum of scientific inquiry—literal hopium being provided to their opponents to give the illusion of Doing Something instead of working on challenging the power structures that are the real driving force.
How much federal funding existed for labs that published results contrary to the consensus?
Contrarian work does fine if it's solid and based in reality. It's just that most contrarian work is crap and it's hard to get funding for junk science. You'd have a hard time finding funding for work on phrenology. Doesn't mean it's being artificially suppressed.
I found the book Unsettled quite interesting https://www.amazon.com/Unsettled-Climate-Science-Doesnt-Matt...
He was high up in Obama admin
For reference: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_E._Koonin
> He later became known as a skeptic on climate change, publishing the book Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn't, and Why It Matters, which was widely condemned for promoting climate denial.
“Climate Denial” is shorthand for anyone who is contrarian to the consensus, no? Or can you provide a single person who opposes the consensus who isn’t labeled the same?
Regardless. It seems like it's less a detailed breakdown of the science and more a pedantic argument about the meaning of science being settled. There's virtually no expert who would argue we know everything there is to know about climate science so it seems the entire book is a refutation of a straw man.
The disconnect seems to be that the political apparatus seems to characterize these “no expert who would argue we know everything there is to know about climate science” folks as “experts who argue that we know everything there is to know about climate science” folks.
Hence the whole “settled science” BS talking point.
The IPCC is a political organization, not a scientific one. They have a dismal record for the accuracy of their predictions, and lack consistency in data they've released that overlaps their previous data releases.
https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/when-science-journal...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q7pDuJgXp8