[conistonwater]

Wait a second: with that kind of logic, how would you distinguish "economic reasons" from "scientific reasons"? What, to your mind, distinguishes genuine scientific discoveries from "stuff people believe because they want a job"? Every successful scientific discovery ever got/kept someone a job, and sometimes even a Nobel prize. I can't help but notice that your logic works on every single scientific field, without exception, which tells me it's likely to be flawed, or am I wrong?

In the end, the only proper way to do this is with arguments based on merit, rather than perceived motivations of other people, because those perceptions are much more likely to be flawed than arguments based on merit.

[RyanZAG]

I don't that's true.

For an example that would apply to computer science: "99% of computer scientists agree that computers are the future of mankind". I don't think you even need to do a study here, it's obvious that around 99% of computer scientists would believe that, because it's what their lives are built around. Climate change scientists' lives are built around the existence of climate change, and so obviously they'd have the same beliefs.

Where the value of a scientific paper comes in is within the discipline: how do a I best use this computer to accomplish something? How do I best cut down on the effects of carbon on the atmosphere? If I increase oxygen density, what will happen? Regardless of the answer to these questions, the people involved will be able to continue their lives. They're disconnected with economic reasons because no matter the answer to the question, there is more work for them. Economic reasons come in when the results of a study would directly threaten the livelihood of the scientist. In that case, we can't just assume that because all the scientists agree that it's automatically perfect.

> In the end, the only proper way to do this is with arguments based on merit, rather than perceived motivations of other people.

Correct! My point was more about how the Agile paper is disparaged. I have more reason to believe the results of an accredited and published Agile paper than I do a paper on the very reason an entire field of study exists.

My personal belief that climate change is real and a huge problem is irrelevant here: I still find the Agile paper to be more convincing. The only reason I believe in climate change is because I've checked the science myself to the best of my ability, and not because of the peer reviewed papers which I believe would say the same exact thing even if climate change does not exist. Hopefully that makes it clearer.

[conistonwater]

Why do you insist that the economic incentive is the only, the primary, and most relevant incentive there? Surely you must understand that a lot of people want to do a good job, which in this case means doing good science (which is an abstract concept, unrelated to people's personal motivations). Wanting to do a good job that stands up to scrutiny of one's peers is as much of an incentive as anything. Haven't you experienced that in your own work? Indeed, historically, science has got a lot of things right. I think you might be unreasonably cynical about all this.

[RyanZAG]

> Historically, science has got a lot of things right.

Can you name any historical outcome of science that did not align in some way with the financials? I cannot name a single scientist who ever researched himself out of a job. Yet that is what would happen to climate science researchers if they were able to prove climate change isn't real. It's unprecedented and I don't think using the historical track record of financially beneficial science is a good argument.

As for doing a good job -- sure, I try do a good job always. But that is entirely within the confines of my job. I'm not going to do a good job that would directly get me fired. Most people wouldn't. Most climate science researchers wouldn't.

Economic incentive is usually not the primary incentive, but in the case of climate science, there is a massive peer incentive to prove that climate change is an enormous risk. Saying something like "I don't think climate change matters" is going to get you snide comments from your peers and nobody is going to want to co-author papers with you. It's a big problem of science and exists in many other areas too. Politics matters.