Post
Topic
Board Politics & Society
Re: Reddit’s science forum banned climate deniers.
by
iCEBREAKER
on 03/10/2016, 22:45:05 UTC

In my relatively short lifetime the scares have already been through a 'coming ice-age' to 'catastrophic warming' to 'climate change' cycle.  The latter being a good catch-all I suppose.



This is more logical fallacies. Just because some very small percentage of scientists talked about global cooling doesn't discount the overwhelming current consensus going on now.

So you are a solar cycle denier?  How retrograde.   Roll Eyes

"Very small percentage" = appeal to popularity (a logical fallacy)

You are obviously too young to remember the long procession of hobgoblins used to justify destroying freedom, from the neo-Malthusian population bomb and ice age panics of the 70s, and the catastrophic warming and nuclear winter of the 80s, to the climate change of the 90s.

You are scared witless of whatever fashionable new bogeyman the Fabians and Frankfort School throw out this decade.

You may relax, dear child, because none of those instances of catastrophism (which are merely secular versions of eschatology) have come to pass.

If we get wiped out, it will be by sudden planetary (think supervolcanic) or astrological (giant meteor of doom) factors beyond our control.

So spare us the hubris, and especially the accusations that doing nothing = violence.  Don't press that specious nonsense in my face or you'll get cut.

You compare these things that were little more than a few pop (popsci) entries into a magazine with something that has grown in consensus over the past 20-30 years. (Those are your dates, you called climate change a 90's thing.. )We're in 2016 now and nothing really seems to show that the consensus is wrong.

I said very small percentage because there I don't have a real number or anything to cite. Feel free to disagree. You will be wrong.

Foolish child, you know so very little about these vast, interdisciplinary topics and gain from your smugness only intellectual closure.

EG, the Population Wars were not just popsci proto-clickbait but rather fought between two professors, Paul Ehrlich of Stanford and Julian Simon of UM.

I spent high school and college diving deep into scholarly journals only found in university libraries researching this stuff, and arguing both sides in debate tournaments.

I came to change my mind on both climate change and population dynamics, based on the evidence and the fact Simon won the bet.

Did you somehow miss the Climategate fiasco?  That, if nothing else, shows "the consensus is wrong" (and validated numerous critics of the system which produced it).

Here's a couple of great places to begin your remedial lessons on debunking the quasi-religious popsci "ZOMG Teh End Is Nigh" Cassandra complex of doom-mongering.

Simon–Ehrlich wager
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon%E2%80%93Ehrlich_wager

Climategate: Why it matters
The scandal we see and the scandal we don't
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/30/crugate_analysis/