TGGP: Not to defend global warming denialism, but is that the entirety of your evidence that Kling is a denier? Because when I read that, I strongly got the impression that he was not rallying against people who believe that anthropogenic global warming is occuring, but rather against people preaching dogmatic versions of a nuanced science. I didn’t get the impression that he was saying that global warming scientists are preaching a religion, but that global warming activists are, and I think that’s completely reasonable. I mean, there’s a difference between calling out science and calling out activists: One thing to note is that Al Gore has been on the global warming beat since BEFORE there was a scientific consensus about it (at least as far as he tells it). I don’t want to go off on Al Gore too much, but that’s certainly the sign of a dogmatist (that is, believing something to be true before the world’s experts on the subject had come to a consensus about it). There were basically two dogmas on the issue, and if you picked randomly you’d have a 50% chance of being vindicated.
And I hate to have to reiterate this, but I’m afraid to be lumped in with global warming deniers because I am defending someone who is perceived to be one, but I do NOT find the denialist position compelling. I do however think that Kling makes a good point there (and a similar point to the one in this blog post, I might add) that it is important to convey how you know what you know. It might be reading too far into it, but I would say that that circles back to the point made in this post about cultishness: it’s easy to say that something “good” like trying to prevent climate disasters isn’t going to have those cultish aspects of attempting to suppress dissent and form in-group mentality, and it it is important (if you are interested in overcoming your biases) to work against this by quantifying how big of a cultish presence you have in your “good” cause.
Just to point it out, even the term “denialist” was designed to be a loaded word that biases everyone who hears it against the position. Which doesn’t make them any more or less likely to be correct, but it does let you know that the whole debate has gone political and scoring points against the opposing side has become more important than finding the truth.
Which doesn’t actually add any evidence to either side being correct, because the universe doesn’t really care about what we think, but it does tell you to watch out, because the mainstream voices have already picked which side they want to be correct and are ruthlessly filtering the “evidence” to eliminate all dissent. Perhaps the dissenters really don’t have a point, but if they did they’d be shouted down long before they could make it.
TGGP: Not to defend global warming denialism, but is that the entirety of your evidence that Kling is a denier? Because when I read that, I strongly got the impression that he was not rallying against people who believe that anthropogenic global warming is occuring, but rather against people preaching dogmatic versions of a nuanced science. I didn’t get the impression that he was saying that global warming scientists are preaching a religion, but that global warming activists are, and I think that’s completely reasonable. I mean, there’s a difference between calling out science and calling out activists: One thing to note is that Al Gore has been on the global warming beat since BEFORE there was a scientific consensus about it (at least as far as he tells it). I don’t want to go off on Al Gore too much, but that’s certainly the sign of a dogmatist (that is, believing something to be true before the world’s experts on the subject had come to a consensus about it). There were basically two dogmas on the issue, and if you picked randomly you’d have a 50% chance of being vindicated.
And I hate to have to reiterate this, but I’m afraid to be lumped in with global warming deniers because I am defending someone who is perceived to be one, but I do NOT find the denialist position compelling. I do however think that Kling makes a good point there (and a similar point to the one in this blog post, I might add) that it is important to convey how you know what you know. It might be reading too far into it, but I would say that that circles back to the point made in this post about cultishness: it’s easy to say that something “good” like trying to prevent climate disasters isn’t going to have those cultish aspects of attempting to suppress dissent and form in-group mentality, and it it is important (if you are interested in overcoming your biases) to work against this by quantifying how big of a cultish presence you have in your “good” cause.
Just to point it out, even the term “denialist” was designed to be a loaded word that biases everyone who hears it against the position. Which doesn’t make them any more or less likely to be correct, but it does let you know that the whole debate has gone political and scoring points against the opposing side has become more important than finding the truth.
Which doesn’t actually add any evidence to either side being correct, because the universe doesn’t really care about what we think, but it does tell you to watch out, because the mainstream voices have already picked which side they want to be correct and are ruthlessly filtering the “evidence” to eliminate all dissent. Perhaps the dissenters really don’t have a point, but if they did they’d be shouted down long before they could make it.