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by jhardy54 2084 days ago
> If, hypothetically, some credible scientists tomorrow did some research that showed global warming is not as bad as we thought, would that get reported widely?

Absolutely yes. It would be hard to come up with strong evidence that the hundreds (thousands?) of other papers are wrong, but extraordinary evidence would absolutely be shared widely.
1 comments
woo49 2084 days ago
I admire your optimism. My view is that people that have bet their political or journalistic careers on a certain matter or position are very reluctant to embrace opposite facts (consciously or unconsciously).

As another example - there were huge campaigns to get women to get screened for breast cancer. Turns out there is little to no benefit in doing so based on extensive long term scientific studies (very surprising to me but that’s what it is). It is taking forever for that fact to come out and it’s not even that controversial.

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csallen 2084 days ago
The point doesn't require optimism at all. In fact, it requires a certain degree of magical thinking to believe that the information WOULDN'T get a wide degree of publicity.

Consider the massive numbers of people and industries who are ideologically and economically motivated to show that climate change is a hoax. It's an absurdly charged issue. Also consider the massive effort that would be required to thoroughly debunk the many dozens of sources of evidence and papers that suggest climate change is both man-made and accelerating.

You are correct that some types of information don't spread as fast as others. In fact, the vast majority of information on earth doesn't get prominent national attention. By definition, it's quite abnormal to reach that level. I don't know much about breast cancer screening, but it seems obvious that "breast cancer screening isn't as reliable as we thought" isn't a shoe-in for front page news, and I'm not sure why that should have any implications for climate change news.

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Jabbles 2084 days ago
News about the recent study seems fairly balanced IMO

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53753458

I don't expect major public health shifts to happen within a month of a paper being published, especially during a pandemic.

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