[blue_dinner]

well, the same thing happens when people would like to discuss alternative theories to the causes of climate change. The BBC, for instance, outright bans anyone that talks about it (and so do many other forums), which is outright censorship.

We should be fighting for the freedom to discuss any topic, not just a select few that matches up with the current narrative.

[mediumdeviation]

That's funny, because in 2014 the BBC was admonished by independent reviewers for giving too much airtime to climate change deniers under their 'too rigid' impartiality guidelines [1].

From the Telegraph [2]

> The BBC’s determination to give a balanced view has seen it pit scientists arguing for climate change against far less qualified opponents such as Lord Lawson who heads a campaign group lobbying against the government’s climate change policies. Andrew Montford, who runs the Bishop Hill climate sceptic blog, former children’s television presenter Johnny Ball and Bob Carter, a retired Australian geologist, are among the other climate sceptics that have appeared on the BBC.

I think I agree with the BBC's own comedian's take on this, which is to give each side time proportional to the amount of support they have from experts in the field. In other words, for every ten minutes of airtime for climate experts on climate change caused by humans, we can have 18 seconds, or 3% of climate skeptics speaking.

[1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/07/0...

[2]: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/10944629/B...

[sudojudo]

Asimov summed it up nicely:

Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'

[drzaiusapelord]

Except anti-intellectualism is hard to define. Not too long ago saying anything critical of communism got you put in re-education work camps for life, jailed, tortured, or killed in many countries. Now it just gets you downvotes from true believers. Afterall, communism was run by the intellectual class quoting Marx, and if you disagreed with Marx then you were an uneducated person.

Everyone thinks they're the intellectuals. Even the people prescribing thalidomide to pregnant women. A strong sense of skepticism should be encouraged, not mocked, and appeals to authority should be seen as invalid on their face.

[zanny]

It actually is not that complicated, at least on the "everyone thinks they are intellectuals". The moment you think you are so right you should be suppressing other peoples right to speak on the matter, you are immediately not the intellectual, you are just a tyrant.

[sageikosa]

I'd second the appeals to authority argument, if only on the grounds that science (the institution) is exactly that: an institution. It is also a game:

http://www.melconway.com/Urban_Teaching/pdf/what_is_science....

[sageikosa]

Publication has brought information to the masses; without providing a metric for its value.

[hueving]

To be fair, experts in a field that's whole existence is being criticized (e.g. saying modeling isn't accurate/whatever) shouldn't be given more weight in that regard.

Consider how many 'experts' there are in numerology. Should we restrict a person from speaking out against them because he/she isn't an expert?

[sageikosa]

Some might compare that to allowing atheists only a few micro-seconds to make the case for the non-existence of deities due to the overwhelming number of experts in the field of religion.

[bduerst]

Well, considering the scope of the world's religions and that it's a matter of opinion, it would be difficult to give anyone the floor for very long if we were using that metric (least of all atheists and anti-theists).

[sageikosa]

That's why I don't like the popularity metric. But that's what you get when you democratize too many things.

[mediumdeviation]

I would think you're too quick to dismiss the number of philosophers of religion, humanists and naturalists, many of whom are experts in the 'field' of religion, as you call it.

[sageikosa]

Against the numbers of bishops, swamis, gurus and imams?

[jerryhuang100]

climate change is a fact, not a theory. just like earth is round as irregularly shaped ellipsoid, not flat. if you want to have an irrational theory against a fact, at least you should work on your evidences and experiments about your crazy theory to proof it, otherwise you're just lazy and crazy.

[sageikosa]

I've always taken the position that the totality of climatic conditions on this planet are not a designed systemic whole, so there is no teleological purpose to it. If this were not so, then we might best be aimed at setting it back to a past condition (such as the Hadean, right after the heavy bombardment stopped and the crust solidified); since anything else is an alteration to its factory default setting.

[snowwrestler]

Yes--the Earth's climate does not have an objectively "correct setting" that the universe prefers.

However, we prefer the settings we have now. We like our cities where they are, we like the sea level where it is, we like polar bears and the Great Barrier Reef the way they are.

Selfish? Yes! But it is relevant because we are the ones who are changing the climate right now! So we are entitled to have an opinion about the changes we are causing.

[sageikosa]

There aren't settings, only observable conditions. The drivers are non-linearly correlated. My suggestion there is that even if you managed to return the size of the human population to pre-industrial levels in roughly the same geographic distribution as the 18th century (good luck with the eugenics programs on that) you'd still not get the results of that time frame, and you'd probably have to live with pre-industrial technology (no lithium ion batteries that destroy various foreign countrysides, and no cheap power apart from maybe localized hydro-electric). I believe if more people understood that trying to control climate change by political means is a sure-fire way to yield political control, or gain it, they masses might stop preferring any of it and would let cities on alluvial planes (such as Venice and New Orleans and Galveston) sink locally rather than try and convince India and China to undergo environmental austerity measures.

[snowwrestler]

You're the one who introduced the concept of settings, above.

If you think it's not fair that China and India have to deal with climate change, I agree with you. But life is not fair. As you point out above, there's no greater purpose to the universe, it just is.

If China and India don't want massive civil unrest, they better work on the problem. If you think moving billions of people away from the coast is easier than reducing fossil fuel emissions, fine, we can examine that idea with data. But political control is not a useful yardstick. Government is an important tool no matter what the plan is.

[sageikosa]

I also put the concept of settings on the opposing end of non-teleologic identification.

I have no expressed opinion on whether the attempt to make China or India conform to green western politics is fair or not; but those two nations probably do, and that's what's really relevant. They'll most likely experience bouts of massive civil unrest without regard to local atmospheric quality.

[chris_wot]

Could you simplify that a little? Apologies, the issue is not with you but with me, but I just don't understand :-(

[sageikosa]

Teleology is the idea that something has a purpose. I don't see climate as having a purpose (in that it wasn't designed with a goal in mind). I also don't see climate as a system (mainly because I don't see it having a teleologic character), it is the simplification and summarization of somewhat cyclically driven (though definitely non-linear) phenomena.

After that, the Hadean is a period about 4 billion years ago named mainly because (to life) it was hellish, but otherwise relatively self-contained (in comparison to the epoch immediately preceding it when space debris continued to pummel the planet).

[chris_wot]

Thank you :-)

[sageikosa]

Although my middle of the night crisis was that I meant the Archean, not the Hadean. sorry, was shooting from the geologic hip, and I'm more of a geographer than a geologist.

[jerryhuang100]

THERE WAS NO LIFE AT HADEAN TIME, DUH.

[sageikosa]

Nor in the early Archean. Kind of my point. If someone wants to undo or revert bad influences on the planet's supposed homeostasis, why just roll back mankind? why not roll back all life? then the earth will be truly pristine. I chose the boundary where the geologic mass stabilized because it makes an identifiable thermodynamic boundary (the system is relatively closed)

[blue_dinner]

Climate change is a fact. The causes are just theories based on computer models.

To say that it's a fact and needs no further study is not only anti-intellectual, it’s criminal.

I worked in academia for over a decade. Knowing what I know about the process and how much ego, money, and politics are involved, it really makes it difricult for me to believe any study isn't biased.

Thw entire system needs to be scrapped and started over.

[jerryhuang100]

> "Climate change is a fact. The causes are just theories based on computer models."

That's not what you said in your now flagged statement. You specifically said "Climate change is a theory." Your statements are just not consistent. 97% climate scientists agree that climate warming in the past century are extremely likely due to human activities. Numerous conferences have similar conclusions of that. There is even a Wikipedia page for that.

> "To say that it's a fact and needs no further study is not only anti-intellectual, it’s criminal."

I never said no more further study. Do not put your words in me. I specifically said bring your own data, your own evidence, your experiments. Where is your data???

> "I worked in academia for over a decade."

So where is the data? Maybe you're just lazy with a crazy theory.

> "Thw entire system needs to be scrapped and started over."

Hahahahaha, good luck with that. Just like a 5 yo crying for the system not fair. It's just another inconsistent statement. First you said you're in academia, which is part the whole system, right? Then you said the entire system need to be scrapped, that includes you. You're still part of that system even you're a system-reject. You're simply anti-social.

[CWuestefeld]

We should be fighting for the freedom to discuss any topic, not just a select few that matches up with the current narrative.

You have the freedom to discuss any topic. This has nothing to do with freedom of speech, it's purely a policy issue. If you don't like how government policy affects research, then stop advocating for the government to be doing so much of the research.

Private-sector scientists were not muzzled; this wasn't a censorship issue at all. If you're speaking on your own dime, or that of an employer who's willing to have their name on it, then there's no problem.

But the Canadian government decided that they weren't willing to let the scientists that they employed speak in that capacity. That's purely a matter of employer-employee relationship.

I'm not saying it was the right thing to do. I'm saying that we know that government is politics. When we bring government into any enterprise, we also bring in the politics. If you dislike politics, then you should be advocating to keep the government and their politics out of other affairs as much as possible.