Robert wrote:Bootstrap wrote:And really, an awful lot of my energy on this thread has been about one question: how do we identify reliable sources of scientific information like scientific journals, scientific associations, literature reviews done by scientists, etc.
A lot of your energy has been spent on this.
I just like to post things that bring the established
beliefs into question.
Beliefs? On a scientific level, I think most of this is about data and how to measure and interpret it. Both in individual experiments and as a larger scientific community.
These days, you can find anything you want on the Internet, and that can sometimes give the impression that facts no longer exist, everything is just a matter of opinion, your beliefs versus my beliefs. That's very different from the academic world I have lived in. Some things are just matters of opinion, but for matters of fact, we try to look carefully at the facts together, over time, and let the facts form our opinions instead of the other way around. Of course, we are only human, we are influenced by our opinions, our grasp of facts is limited, some special interests are trying to put their thumbs on the scales, and we always know only in part ... but the scientific community knows all that, and tries to take that into account.
Here's something that troubles me on both the extreme right and the extreme left: there is often an attitude that "we" are the people who know the truth, "they" are just victims of groupthink, "they" are distorting science in pursuit of their own opinions, etc. It is no longer a question of facts, it's tribal groupthink on both sides. It's people willingly buying into propaganda instead of careful pursuit of facts. And the main solution I see is to remind ourselves constantly that facts exist and we can look at them, carefully, together.
But that's best done by leaning on sources that scientists would accept as reliable. There is just so much hogwash on the Internet that there is no value in discussing every graphic or website that confirms a particular opinion. And because the time and expertise required to do this well is enormous, for most of us, this is something we can do best by reading summaries that the scientific community provides for us. The alternative is to really get down into the weeds. For instance, John Christy claims that the scientific community, as a whole, overstates global warming. The basis for his claim is satellite temperatures. There are two main scientific groups working with satellite temperatures, the Huntsville group and the RSS group, and they disagree. Their disagreement centers on how this data is interpreted - neither group "simply measures" the temperature, they each apply the same corrections, but they disagree on exactly how to do that. The RSS results largely agree with the other measures we have of warming, the Huntsville results say global warming is much less than that. So who is right? That depends on some very technical things like the right value of the NOAA-9 variable used in the correction formula. And even having that discussion requires a level of depth that is probably not going to happen on MN. Even if we were capable of it, it would drive everyone else nuts.
But if you are curious, here is a paper written by members of both groups, explaining where they differ on interpreting satellite data:
Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere - Understanding and Reconciling Differences. Christy leads the Huntsville group, Mears leads the RSS group. One particularly important part is this section: "What measures can be taken to improve the understanding of observed changes?" This is how science should work - get the people who disagree together in one room, make them look carefully at the data and think about what it would take to come up with answers both would accept as reliable.
Is it biblical? Is it Christlike? Is it loving? Is it true? How can I find out?