[MostlyStable]

What utter nonsense

>Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had

The majority of all human knowledge has the consensus of scientists. It is only the very bleeding edge that does not.

And equating the level of uncertainty in what kind and amount of dust particles produced by a burning city with the uncertainty in rate of abiogensis in the universe is misleading to the point of lying.

And those were only the two most ridiculous things I read in the first 5 pages before giving it up as a waste of time.

[defrost]

It needs a qualifier regarding backed by data, supported by a truck load of thoroughly peer reviewed papers.

For the record, AGW Climate Change in 2024 has all that, the situation in 2002 (when this lecture in January 2003 was written) had somewhat more wiggle room.

The context for his quoted skeptiscism deserves mention; Carl Sagan's Nuclear Winter was pure pop science .. there were many reasons for most on either side of the aisles to join in in on agreement and no real upside to being a nay sayer.

[MostlyStable]

There will always be bad pop science on every topic. The correct response is to ignore it, or, if you must, criticize the specific work and the specific ways in which it is bad. He is taking the existence of such bad pop science and smearing an entire field as being completely unscientific. Which is the entire problem that I saw with the 5 pages I read. He took a grain of truth and stretched it beyond all credibility and reason to ridiculous conclusions.

Much like his quote about scientific consensus. Yes, the media often sells a lie about fake consensus that doesn't actually exist, and to whatever meager extent it is, isn't supported by much evidence, but to take that (twisted, warped, and removed from context) fact and to then simply claim that one should never trust anything which has a claimed scientific consensus is idiocy.

One should absolutely be skeptical when you get a combination of factors:

1) The _only_ arguments are appeals to consensus 2) The topic has strong political valence

but those are very specific circumstances in which to be skeptical.

[defrost]

I'm fond of science, I did a few decades of exploration geophysics.

The Carl Sagan era Nuclear Winter discussions was almost entirely pop science.

The soundest papers of the time were dressed up back of the envelope Fermi estimations with the thumb heavily on the total devestation of the planet side of the scale.

It suited the pacificists, Sagan, Russell, et al to highlight nuclear danger, It suited diplomats wanting a MAD path to equilibrium standoff backed by the threat of total nuclear destruction.

> He is taking the existence of such bad pop science and smearing an entire field as being completely unscientific.

Rather he took the existence of a bad pop science field (Nuclear Winter papers of the Sagan era) and used that to smear another domain (atmospheric carbon models of 1967 onwards).