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by _nosaj 2658 days ago
I'll elaborate. As many others have pointed out below, a single data point says nothing about a trend. It's statistics 101.

I agree that man made climate change is a big problem, but I'm not willing to use every sensational event as confirmation of this.

1 comments

A sensational data point like that actually is a series of points. If you set a record, it depends on all the data that came before. One data point doesn't make it an exceptional measure, all those before do that.

I understand denial is in play, as people worldwide come to terms with the mess we're in. Its a normal process. There's other stages as well - bargaining, anger, grief. Unfortunately we don't seem to have time for all that to play out.

You seem to be confusing trends and data points. In my original comment I was pointing out that a trend tells us a lot, while an isolated data point tells us almost nothing.

My issue with the article is that the author uses a data point and frames it like a trend. It's sensational, sure, but it will only be statistically significant when we can observe a trend.