Climate Scientists Respond To Attacks on Objectivity (theguardian.com) 97
Climate scientists who were mocked and gaslighted after speaking up about their fears for the future have said acknowledging strong emotions is vital to their work. From a report: The researchers said these feelings should not be suppressed in an attempt to reach supposed objectivity. Seeing climate experts' fears and opinions about the climate crisis as irrelevant suggests science is separate from society and ultimately weakens it, they said.
The researchers said they had been subject to ridicule by some scientists after taking part in a large Guardian survey of experts in May, during which they and many others expressed their feelings of extreme fear about future temperature rises and the world's failure to take sufficient action. They said they had been told they were not qualified to take part in this broad discussion of the climate crisis, were spreading doom and were not impartial.
However, the researchers said that embracing their emotions was necessary to do good science and was a spur to working towards better ways of tackling the climate crisis and the rapidly increasing damage being done to the world. They also said that those dismissing their fears as doom-laden and alarmist were speaking frequently from a position of privilege in western countries, with little direct experience of the effects of the climate crisis.
The researchers said they had been subject to ridicule by some scientists after taking part in a large Guardian survey of experts in May, during which they and many others expressed their feelings of extreme fear about future temperature rises and the world's failure to take sufficient action. They said they had been told they were not qualified to take part in this broad discussion of the climate crisis, were spreading doom and were not impartial.
However, the researchers said that embracing their emotions was necessary to do good science and was a spur to working towards better ways of tackling the climate crisis and the rapidly increasing damage being done to the world. They also said that those dismissing their fears as doom-laden and alarmist were speaking frequently from a position of privilege in western countries, with little direct experience of the effects of the climate crisis.
Well, (almost) nobody likes Cassandra (Score:1, Troll)
Does not make her any less right about what is to come though. But most people are deep into denial as a coping strategy. For individual problems that can work, as many things fix themselves on small-scale. But species-scale? That is basically a proof of extreme incompetency and usually leads to extinction. As we are not there yet and species survival is still a real possibility, let's mess things up some more!
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Being very emotional and biased about something doesn't make you wrong. It just means that if you're presented with information that contradicts what you believe you're likely to give it less weight and shuff it off compared to data that supports what you believe.
That's a human behavior we can reliably see happen. People like that sometimes can be proven they are wrong and they just say, 'Well I could have been right' and still really don't accept the issues with their view.
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Being emotional about real problems makes you _dumb_. And while you can still be right by accident, it is not something anybody sane will ever rely on.
Well, "dumb" is the usual modus of most people. The human race is approaching a decision point at this time and it does not look like it will come out successful.
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Re: Well, (almost) nobody likes Cassandra (Score:2)
Your willful ignorance is far past ridiculousness and well into insanity, which explains why you support a demented racist
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the KKK was a purely Democratic Party organization
This is [apnews.com] false, [usatoday.com] but commonly repeated by the Crossburning Klan Shit Conservatives of the GOP RepugnantKlan Inbred Fuckwits Party.
Re: Well, (almost) nobody likes Cassandra (Score:2)
How does it feel to know you have created the future you despise?
Re:Well, (almost) nobody likes Cassandra (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Well, (almost) nobody likes Cassandra (Score:2)
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Don't kid yourself. Being "dumb" is something all humans do, as is being emotional about important questions. I think you can think of science as a kind of emergent coping mechanism for that. As individuals we can always fool ourselves.
Both climate scientists and climate denialists have opinions informed by emotion and which generate strong emotions. The difference is that science works within an external social framework that demands rigid and rigorous criticism, both self-criticism and exposure to ext
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Sorry, but not everybody is _this_ defect. People being emotional about their findings is rather rare with scientists. A mild sense of accomplishment is usually about as far as it goes. The only reason why some climate scientists pretend to be emotional now is because they have noticed that their rather critical results are being ignored. There even was a public discussion about that approach.
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I'm not a scientist myself, but I spent a significant portion of my career working with them, including helping them respond to peer review comments. If you even seen those, believe me it gets emotional. Maybe not schoolyard bullying, more like high school mean girls.
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Being emotional about real problems makes you _dumb_.
Being emotional about real problems is _normal_. Suppressing the emotion to get things done is heroic, but it comes at a cost. Just ask PTSD sufferers about that.
Well, "dumb" is the usual modus of most people.
True. And if we had better education, more responsible media, and an economy that wasn't predicated on creating an endless supply of unthinking suckers, then we'd have less of the "dumb" to deal with.
The human race is approaching a decision point at this time and it does not look like it will come out successful.
Sadly, I agree with you. Does my sadness cause you to see me as "dumb"? Just curious.
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The human race is approaching a decision point at this time and it does not look like it will come out successful.
Sadly, I agree with you. Does my sadness cause you to see me as "dumb"? Just curious.
No. "Dumb" only applies if you use emotions as basis of your decision making instead of rational thought.
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The human race is approaching a decision point at this time and it does not look like it will come out successful.
Sadly, I agree with you. Does my sadness cause you to see me as "dumb"? Just curious.
No. "Dumb" only applies if you use emotions as basis of your decision making instead of rational thought.
And therein lies the dilemma. What happens if you determine by "rational thought" that a crisis is approaching? Do you not get emotional? I would. And I'm sure I would be suspected by some of being an alarmist, because emotion conveys an air of irrationality. And yet you need to be alarmed if a crisis is approaching.
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No. "Dumb" only applies if you use emotions as basis of your decision making instead of rational thought.
And therein lies the dilemma. What happens if you determine by "rational thought" that a crisis is approaching? Do you not get emotional? I would. And I'm sure I would be suspected by some of being an alarmist, because emotion conveys an air of irrationality. And yet you need to be alarmed if a crisis is approaching.
I disagree. Being "alarmed" decreases your ability to deal with that crisis. Sure, you need to take it seriously, but the calmer you remain, the better you can deal with that crisis.
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I disagree. Being "alarmed" decreases your ability to deal with that crisis. Sure, you need to take it seriously, but the calmer you remain, the better you can deal with that crisis.
What happens if you remain calm, but you cannot get others to take the crisis seriously? Others whose help you need to deal with the crisis?
That seems to be where we're at, no?
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What happens if you remain calm, but you cannot get others to take the crisis seriously?
That's a "find out" problem. You need to find out what is going on their head.
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Climate scientists have been working for decades on the problem and on ways to communicate its seriousness to the public. They have invested a great deal of time trying to "find out" what is going on in the heads of the people they cannot convince. And it's not like they haven't had help from people who are experts at communication.
And yet many people remain stubborn in their denial. Why? I would suggest it's due to strident contrary voices in the alt-media that present a more comforting scenario, and cast
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In that case things are already lost. Sorry. Dealing with a crisis competently is not something you can do based on an emotional response.
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Why do the censor trolls have mod points?
Asking for a friend? I'm (dangerously) assuming I might have a friend with mod points, though I've haven't been given any to bestow is many years.
All the time (Score:5, Interesting)
For those who don't like getting news from The Guardian, the article they talk about is at Nature's site : https://www.nature.com/article... [nature.com]
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let's talk about the climate scientists who lost their jobs and were basically banned from their profession and the universities they often worked at because they published their findings which went against
Please, provide some actual names. I think we will find they were frauds who fabricated data, like Brian Thomas.
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That is the essence of science, look at the work, not the person.
Re:Citation needed (Score:4, Interesting)
>science is separate from society and ultimately weakens it
The actual sentence:
Seeing climate experts' fears and opinions about the climate crisis as irrelevant suggests science is separate from society and ultimately weakens it, they said.
You know, it KINDA seems like you might be trying to intentionally misrepresent what was written so that you can refute an argument that was never actually made.
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which makes sense because if you think about it these climate guys are just weathermen on a longer timeframe
Not even close. Watch the man, not the dog. - Neil DeGrasse Tyson. [youtube.com] Seasonal shifts and long-term trends are COMPLETELY different from trying to model day-to-day / hour-to-hour weather changes.
Weather is not climate, and the only people who think otherwise are sisterfucking Russian Trolls and Klan Bots like ShitbrainKendall.
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You're seriously going to fall back on a tv celebrity to make a point? Really? Maybe you have a real scientist you can quote?
You know tv shows and movies and such are fictional, right? They're just reading scripts other people wrote. Tyson is no more a real scientist than Tom Cruise is a fighter pilot, lawyer, race car driver, or super agent for the government doing impossible missions.
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a-nal-ogy
noun
"an analogy between the workings of nature and those of human societies"
"the syndrome is called deep dysgraphia because of its analogy to deep dyslexia"
"works of art were seen as an analogy for works of nature"
Please, do try to live up to the claim in your username. Kisses.
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Thanks for the copy paste. Use,ess in this context but I guess you needed a refresher.
Does my username confuse you? I am a total dimwit stupid fuck. And my name is entirely accurate.
Hugs!
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Tyson is no more a real scientist than...
Tyson has a doctorate in astrophysics [neildegrassetyson.com] whereas you're an inbred Klanfuck from a trailer park who never graduated from anything. The "iAmWaySmarterThanYou" username is just a reminder to everyone sane that you're dumber than a box of rocks.
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Lmao, you're so easily triggered.
He's an actor. He reads scripts other people write for him.
The Klan you love to plaster mindlessly on every post was created and manned by the Democrats. Fortunately they are a dead org today. Nothing left but a boogey man for internet trolls to scream about. That sort of rhetoric is on the same level as screaming Hitler at everyone.
You little lefty cultists are so cute when you explode.
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Tyson is no more a real scientist than Tom Cruise is a fighter pilot,
So are you saying Tyson didn't write this PhD thesis:
https://www.proquest.com/docvi... [proquest.com]
or have this list of peer review publications:
https://neildegrassetyson.com/... [neildegrassetyson.com]
You are, yet again, proving your username to be somewhat on the nose.
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He has a degree, sure. That doesn't make him a scientist.
His last paper, from your link? 2008. 16 years ago.
He may have one time been a scientist. Today he is a celebrity. He hasn't done science in a long time.
I don't hold it against him in anyway. Good for him if he can cash in and become the next Carl Sagan and live a cushy celebrity life, get the ego boost from being known to the public and having a bunch of fans. Scientists don't have fans. They research be publish. My college professors also ha
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He has a degree, sure.
In general, no.
That doesn't make him a scientist.
Except that his "degree" is a PhD in physics.
He may have one time been a scientist.
So in other words, he's way more of a scientist than Tom Cruise, unless you think that Tom Cruise has at one time been a fighter pilot, race car driver and secret agent.
Anyway thanks for actually agreeing with me and admitting that you are yet again completely full of shit.
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He -was- a scientist. Now he is a celebrity. Just like Tom Cruise but less rich and famous. But more so than when he was an unknown scientist.
Nuance. It's kinda cool, eh?
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Yes nuance is cool, you should try it.
No he's not just like Tom Cruise because Cruise is an actor and has been none of those things whereas Tyson has actually been a professional scientist.
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Yes, you should learn about nuance.
I will explain, slowly, since you didn't understand the Tom Cruise effort. It was too complex for you.
Let's imagine there was a man, we shall call him Bob, who really was a fighter pilot and Top Gun instructor. But Bob stopped doing that in 2008 because Bob was offered movie roles to play a fighter pilot Top Gun instructor.
Bob resigns his position in the Air Force and goes to Hollywood.
We would call Bob "former air force pilot and Top Gun instructor" because Bob -was- bu
Re:Just like weathermen (Score:5, Informative)
Meanwhile, here in the real world, climate predictions from the 1980s [phys.org] have turned out to be remarkably accurate. This is from the abstract of James Hansen's 1981 paper [science.org], "Climate Impact of Increasing Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide".
It is shown that the anthropogenic carbon dioxide warming should emerge from the noise level of natural climate variability by the end of the century, and there is a high probability of warming in the 1980's. Potential effects on climate in the 21st century include the creation of drought-prone regions in North America and central Asia as part of a shifting of climatic zones, erosion of the West Antarctic ice sheet with a consequent worldwide rise in sea level, and opening of the fabled Northwest Passage.
Every single year since 1987 has set a record as one of the 10 warmest years ever recorded to date. Droughts have become more common and more severe in North America and Asia. Sea level rise has accelerated dramatically [nasa.gov], from 1.5 mm/year through most of the 20th century, to 2.5 mm/year in the 1990, to 3.9 mm/year in the last decade. And yes, even the prediction about the Northwest Passage [wikipedia.org] turned out to be right.
But hey, don't let reality get in the way of your politically driven lies!
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You can go back to the 1890's and Svante Arrhenius paper On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground which most modern models are derived from. He later wrote Worlds in Making were he explored the role human activity and volcanoes had in CO2 emissions, although his conclusions about increased CO2 and higher temperatures are very naive in todays standards and knowledge.
I doubt anyone can argue his papers were "politically driven" with a straight face.
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It is shocking that a state like California which has a natural drought loving climate and the same drought loving climate in Central Asia would have... droughts.
These places have been dry as long as people have been there.
You can't judge global climate based on 20-30 years of drought in places that have always been drought ridden.
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There were 1000s of predictions. Statistically one of them would hit the mark.
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Indeed. All the ones that predicted the world would get warmer, sea level would rise, sea ice would shrink, and extreme weather events would increase were right on. All the predictions by denialists [arstechnica.com] who claimed climate change was a hoax turned out to be laughably bad.
Who are you going to believe?
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I can relate to at least one of their complaints. (Score:4, Interesting)
They said they had been told they were not qualified to take part in this broad discussion of the climate crisis, were spreading doom and were not impartial.
In previous discussions on SD, when I've argued that scientists making any claims need to have their data open to the public so that I, as an individual, can look at the data and draw my own conclusion, I've been pointedly told a few times that they have no obligation to do that because I just am not smart enough to analyze the data and would cherry-pick it to argue against their findings.
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Well that makes a lot of sense. If your findings aren't very persuasive, that is.
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But that's the whole point. I'm not even able to have any findings because I'm not given the data under the guise that I'm not a scientist. So these scientists' claiming that "they're not qualified to take part in this broad discussion" hits the same nerve.
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I was being snarky about their attitude. If their data and conclusion is unpersuasive, it makes things oh so easy for them to not have to argue the point.
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That's such a narrow view of us as intelligent human beings and full of assumptions. For all you know, and if IQ is a true measure, I may actually have a higher IQ than many of the scientists who do research and may be able to pick up their own cherry-picking of data on their papers. By your measure, we should just blindly accept whatever scientists throw at us just because their papers have been peer-reviewed, and that's not something I'm willing to accept, no matter who the source is.
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For all you know, and if IQ is a true measure, I may actually have a higher IQ than many of the scientists who do research and may be able to pick up their own cherry-picking of data on their papers.
The IQ is only part of it. The science, training and peer review is another part of it. There are too many smart engineers that think they know more than climate scientists because they picked up a bit of fluid dynamics along the way. Scientists rarely get the delusion that they can build a bridge, a high rise, a better electric motor or a car.
By your measure, we should just blindly accept whatever scientists throw at us just because their papers have been peer-reviewed, and that's not something I'm willing to accept, no matter who the source is.
No, you should just blindly accept what tens of thousands of scientists have produced over decades, which is peer reviewed research and publications. Because you
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What does "better at science" mean? There are any number of reason's why we shouldn't trust scientists. Its like saying we should trust decisions by supreme court justices because they are "better at law". Or decisions by congress because "they are better at politics". It is the mark of authoritarianism.
Should we have trusted phrenology? Measured any heads recently? How about eugenics? Want to explain why all those people are inferior. Especially important since half the statistical claims made today are b
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Turns out statistics is *difficult* and scientists make mistakes.
Many scientists are terrible at programming, and their coding practices are sloppy. Don't trust the models without reviewing their source code.
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In the past, when climate scientists have released their data, people have used bad science to cherry-pick it to argue against their findings and attack them... so they have a pretty valid reason to be worried that that will happen, and unlike you they have to actually suffer the consequences when it does.
I do think data should be available in general (and also analysis methods should be published, before you obtain the raw data), but in this case it's kind of understandable why they might be hesitant to.
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sure sure sure, but why do you specifically in this case want the data?
Are you looking to determine for yourself whether global warming is reeaaaallly happening, or something else?
That's what science is for (Score:2)
No one is objective or rational. If you think you are, that proves how irrational you are. That just isn't how our brains work. We're irrational creatures.
The whole point of the scientific method is to compensate for it and let us still reach objective, rational conclusions. It doesn't matter whether you're objective, because of course you aren't. What matters is whether you follow the established process. If you follow it correctly, your conclusions will be valid. Challenge someone for not following
Being emotional means they care. (Score:2)
Claiming your opponent isn't rational enough isn't evidence of their failure. It's just a personal attack when there is no way to refute what they claimed.
Should science be based solely on emotions? No, but we're humans too. And the things that make us feel will drive us to act. You know... 'intrinsic motivators' versus all the money, power, etc (extrinsic motivators).
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Don't fear the reaper (Score:2)
To consider climate change so important to the continued existence of the current civilization to get so emotional ... that's some wild optimism. It's not even top 3 of immanent threats.
We are thoroughly fucked regardless.
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Demographic collapse among the high productivity population. WMD use in warfare and bioterrorism. AI.
What you're reading is not science (Score:4, Insightful)
They also said that those dismissing their fears as doom-laden and alarmist were speaking frequently from a position of privilege in western countries, with little direct experience of the effects of the climate crisis.
If you're wondering why you hear phrases like "position of privilege" and "direct experience" being invoked in a discussion about science, let me explain.
This has nothing to do with science. It is postmodernist bilge. These people are active enemies of science, they reject its ability to determine objective truth and elevate "lived experience" and "other ways of knowing" as equally if not more valid. Science itself to them is considered "colonial" (because of its association with the Western Englightment; hence "privilege in western countries").
The emphasis on lived experience is why this is all about feelings. And it's important that they feel attacked and hurt and dismissed. That gives them the coveted status of oppressed in the oppressor-oppressed dynamic, which in their view automatically makes them good and makes it the duty of others to accommodate them.
This stuff has been leaking in from the humanities and you're starting to see it more and more in scientific journals, because while real scientists might just care about doing good science, the editorial staff are usually humanities dabblers or crossovers and they are pulling in this non-science viewpoint with them.
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Fossil fuel industry still... (Score:2)
Oh STFU (Score:2)
"...embracing their emotions was necessary to do good science..."
Deserving of ridicule.
Is everyone just a child now? Look, I'm sure Jonas Salk felt very, very strongly about his work with the Polio vaccine but this idea that everyone has to wear their weepy heart on their sleeve every moment of every day is just juvenile. Trembling in fear over the "impending climate disaster" means you've already decided the outcome of whatever data you're gathering. As if we've never heard of confirmation bias.
Nobody g
When details matter, feelings do not (Score:2)
"It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong." - Richard Feynman