[triceratops]

> Who are these people who feel that simply listening to someone speak is equivalent to endorsing them?

There are certain topics that are so settled, that to engage with anyone with a contrary view is tantamount to giving them credibility and a platform to reach the uninformed. Some topics simply don't have "both sides" in any meaningful sense. Flat eartherism, Holocaust denial, and antivaxxerism are ones that immediately come to mind. Anyone who denies the mainstream consensus on those subjects is either a moron, a dishonest person with selfish or malicious motives, or both.

Denial of human-caused climate change is close to being in that bucket by this point (the next 2 decades will determine the truth of it). From the perspective of those advocating for action against climate change, deniers have blocked any sort of meaningful action for nearly 30 years. Their actions have led to unprecedented, potential economic, humanitarian, and ecological crises.

[beaner]

Yeah but climate science is complicated by the fact that it is overwhelmingly political.

You could say the same thing about geocentrism, germs [1], fat vs sugars, etc. - which all turned out to be false, given time and scrutiny.

Scientists have to learn the science to understand it, and that means encountering it from all perspectives. As new generations of people learn, they all have to go through it all again.

To not do so is to promote faith, not science.

Plus if denialism is wrong, then there should be nothing to worry about anyway. Assuming scientists are scientific, they will consider it, consider other evidence, and come to the correct conclusion.

[1] https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/532074/how-promoting-han...

[baddox]

> You could say the same thing about geocentrism, germs [1], fat vs sugars, etc. - which all turned out to be false, given time and scrutiny.

Those things were not proven false by simply exposing the supposed political influence in the practice of science! The validity of a scientific theory does not depend on the political influence of the institutions that researched or proposed the theory. They were proven false and replaced by better scientific theories.

[triceratops]

> Plus if denialism is wrong, then there should be nothing to worry about anyway.

I don't follow the logic of that. If denialism is wrong, but it's influencing society and policy, how is that not something to worry about?

[neetle]

It feels vaguely like Pascal's wager.

The payoff for anthropogenic climate change existing and us doing something is much higher than the price of it not existing and us doing something.

[catalogia]

Even if climate change wasn't happening (it is), it seems plain to me we'd all benefit from less sulfer in the air. Not even coal miners like smog (though if they live far away from the smog they may be apathetic towards it.) The universal appreciation for fresh air should be more than enough motivation for anybody.

[overgard]

If your side is failing to convince people, the solution shouldn’t be “shut up the other side”, no matter how right you may be. It’s intellectually dishonest.

By engaging in cancel culture, it gives the silenced side way more credibility, because they can say “why are they afraid to let us speak?” It’s not just that cancel culture is morally bad, its also ineffective.

[triceratops]

When the "other side" is arguing in bad faith, you're damned if you let them speak and damned if you don't. Someone like that isn't going to play by the rules of logical, rational discourse - such as sticking to the facts - so there isn't much to be gained by letting them speak versus not giving them a platform. I point you to Holocaust denialism, which has a long, rich tradition of ignoring, obfuscating, or concocting elaborate alternative explanations for any truths that run counter to their dogma. Or for something more benign, the flat earth movement or the Apollo landing conspiracy theorists.

It's easy for a bullshitter to make up more bullshit, and people love to believe "contrarian" bullshit so they can appear smarter than the next guy. Refuting bullshit takes time, energy, and effort that could be spent on more productive activities.

It's absolutely a worry that legitimate contrarian speech (I get that that's an oxymoron to some people) might be suppressed. But that's not what's currently happening.

[jdauriemma]

An analogous historic example can be found in lead toxicity denial and denial of the harmful effects of tobacco. It took generations to chase away the bad-faith actors in the scientific and medical communities.

[JamesBarney]

Geocentrism wasn't really a scientific theory, because we didn't really have scientific theories yet. This was just a thing people believed.

Fats vs sugars I don't know what you're referring to, but it hasn't really ever been a scientific theory.

The germs article about a discovery in the 1800's. And if that is a allegory about climate change, the doctor's who denied germ theory are the climate deniers.

> Plus if denialism is wrong, then there should be nothing to worry about anyway. Assuming scientists are scientific, they will consider it, consider other evidence, and come to the correct conclusion.

Scientists have already considered it and come to the correct conclusion. And if climate change denialism is wrong (which pretty much every scientist who has studied the subject believes) and we choose not to act that could cause billions to trillions of dollars in harm and many lost lives.

Also climate change science is pretty simple. If you take a green house and fill it with carbon dioxide it will get hotter. Do the same thing to a planet and it will get hotter. Not to mention the global temperature record has told a very consistent sorry over the last decades of warming.

[specialist]

"...climate science is complicated by the fact that it is overwhelmingly political."

We shouldn't use science to inform policy?

[ALittleLight]

Holocaust denial is offensive and frequently a precursor to Nazi ideology. Antivax leads to children not getting medicated.

Flat Earth though seems pretty valuable to me. It's an intellectual exercise to argue a challenging position, and to do so you must learn the evidence you're arguing against. Until flat Earth advocates start getting into NASA or something I can't see how they're doing any harm.

In general, I tend to think that even if some ideas are toxic and should be kept from children or the mentally disturbed, there's nothing wrong with discussing ideas of any kind between people speaking peacefully and consensually.