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by Kaya 5635 days ago
The author claims unequivocally that global warming is a hoax. Submitted as evidence is a page which one-sidedly discusses troubling, suspicious, and unseemly behavior by some climate scientists. That is bad, but not proof of a hoax--not by a long shot. Such a strong claim supported by such a weak source makes it appear (at least to the skeptical) that the author may not be equally skeptical of all sources or points of view. Confirmation bias is a known bug in the wetware which makes it hard to be truly objective about anything, try as we might.

Had the author made a weaker claim I'd have read the rest of the article with much less skepticism!
1 comments
anamax 5635 days ago
Huh?

Telling us how he could have satisfied you wrt a different argument is interesting but he question was "How much support should he have given for each of his arguments to satisfy you?"

Note that he suggested skepticism wrt multiple things, suggesting that general skepticism is a good idea, yet you're only discussing one of them.

Suppose we conclude that skepticism wrt global warming is unwarranted. What, if anything, does that say about his general conclusion?

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codex 5635 days ago
It is not my intent to invalidate the author's thesis. I attempted to point out that skepticism is not enough; one must also apply skepticism consistently to all sources in order to free oneself from unconscious cognitive bias. As evidence, I use the author's treatment of global warming, where the evidence supplied is far too poor to support the conclusion. It's not a matter of quantity--it's just a blog post, after all, and I would have been tolerant of zero support for his claims. But if the author does supply support, it shouldn't be so crappy to as to suggest that does not apply a skeptical viewpoint to his own sources.
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anamax 5634 days ago
> I attempted to point out that skepticism is not enough; one must also apply skepticism consistently to all sources in order to free oneself from unconscious cognitive bias. As evidence, I use the author's treatment of global warming

Likewise, I use your treatment of his examples. As I pointed out, he provided better support for his global warming skepticism, which you rejected, than he did for his other skepticism, which you accepted.

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