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by autokad 1464 days ago
I do think the global temperature is rising, but you can't say things like 'what I considered hot as a kid is different than what I now consider hot' and be taking seriously scientifically. Its an interesting anecdotal point but that's about it. I'm sure the data for where you grew up as a kid is available for the last 50 years, so get the data and give a real numbers to numbers comparison.

I have actually done this in terms of snow. I said to myself, it seems like there were bigger snow storms (in termps of inches of snow) when I was a kid. so I got the data to verify it, and yes, not only were the snow as a kid much higher, they were also historical high - a couple record snowfalls when I was a kid. The point of this story isn't meant to tie anything to climate change, but rather be more curious and get data to back up your thoughts.
2 comments
PaulDavisThe1st 1464 days ago
> Its an interesting anecdotal point but that's about it

I hate quoting Bezos about this, but it's catchy and thought provoking: when the anecdotes and the data disagree, the anecdotes are usually right.

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sacrosancty 1463 days ago
That's extremely context specific. You can imagine something like in social sciences where people have quite finely tuned but subjective personal awareness of human behavior and some data makes a coarse but objective measurement of it. It's hard for the data to be as "accurate" as the personal experience, so it can easily be wrong. But "it was colder when I was a kid" vs temperature measurements is the other way around.
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naniwaduni 1463 days ago
I mean, we're looking at an example where the anecdotes and data are fairly in agreement. But the point is that when you encounter a metric that's at odds with recurrent anecdotes, you should strongly consider that you aren't measuring the right thing. You can get incredibly accurate measurements of a doorframe's height but if people keep telling you they're having trouble getting packages in, it might just be that they don't fit the width.
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maximus-decimus 1463 days ago
On the flip side, if you change metrics until you get one that says what you want, do your metrics really provide any value?
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jahnu 1463 days ago
> when the anecdotes and the data disagree, the anecdotes are usually right.

My friend's mate's sister says the same thing and the graph shows otherwise. I guess it must be true.

;)

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jacquesm 1464 days ago
That's true, but this article isn't much better.
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