164: Playing Devil's Advocate to Win

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Playing Devil's Advocate to Win

Title text: There are so many well-meaning conservatives around here who just assume global warming is only presented as a moral issue for political reasons.

Explanation

The phrase “I believe in science” may be one of the most ridiculous things a person can say in this age of information

Let me explain.

What this statement has come to mean is: “I believe in the current scientific consensus.” or “I trust the scientific results in this study posted right below” it also implies that “anyone who disagrees with me is anti-science, and I have no reason to listen to them” Not often do we realize that a person can find scientific evidence to back up any belief they have about the world.

There was once a scientific consensus that smoking was good for you. Not just benign… but a healthy life choice.

Science once told us it would be a good idea to spray DDT directly on the skin of people - including children. Enter polio.

Science told us Vioxx (a drug for arthritis) was safe and it ended up causing 140,000 heart attacks and killing about 50,000 people.

Why do I bring up these instances? To show that, unless science is your religion, science is not meant to be a belief system. Science is meant to be a process. The minute you “believe” in science is the minute you give away your critical thinking skills because a study tells you how to think. True scientists do not “believe” in scientific results so much as they believe in the process. They have the understanding that science is always changing. We will never “arrive” to a place and time where we know all there is to know. As a science major in college I learned that doing science often leaves us with more questions than answers.

Science is meant to be questioned, not blindly believed in. In the words of Richard Feynman, “I’d rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned.”

The final issue I have with this statement is that most science has been bought by our capitalistic and reductionist culture. We only study the things that can make us money and only those with money can fund the science that they “believe” in. We study what a drug or supplement does to one part of our body without looking at how it affects the whole person long term.

An example of this would be how there is a lack of science on the physiological, normal birth process because midwives don’t have the money to fund it. But when you’re trying to sell pitocin, fetal monitors and epidurals to hospitals suddenly there’s a lot of science to be done. There isn’t much research being done on the effects of a solid community surrounding a newly postpartum mother, but there's endless research on the drugs we can give for postpartum depression.

“Science is too delicate for market forces to govern. It turns scientists into salesman” - Bret Weinstein

Science is a tool that helps us understand the world. Science is not a religion. Science is not a weapon to use against people who don’t agree with you.

If you read an article that cites a study, tells you how to think, and then asks no questions, take it with a grain of salt. If it seems to have everything about this subject figured out, move on. Filter any scientific result through your own personal devil's advocate. What does your gut tell you intuitively? How does it compare to the biological norm? How does it compare to what you know to be true in the world? And, for the love of all that is holy, when someone else has a different scientific opinion - engage in a conversation instead of a debate.”

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Discussion

As this is a controversial topic, there may be several denialist trolls lurking below. Beware of feeding them.

I'm sure that no matter what scientific evidence about global warming is, the political issue lost contact with science long ago. I mean, do we really need global warming to prove that burning all fossil fuels and deforesting most of planet is bad? Also, our ability to endanger species doesn't seem limited to global warming. And the so-called solutions to global warming? This is not about science. It's a fight between people who are getting rich on oil and people who are getting rich on projects labelled as ecological. And both sides are manipulating science data - one to deny the global warming, one to make it even worse that it is. ... I don't believe anyone have working solution to global warming which doesn't involve at least 3 billions dead humans. -- Hkmaly (talk) 23:14, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

We have a global warming since the last twenty thousand years. And we are still at a cold period (on long term meanings). A real global warming would bring us back to the conditions of the dinosaur ages.--Dgbrt (talk) 21:15, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Correct. And it would be catastrophic on a global scale. 108.162.237.64 17:48, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

"Long term meanings" aren't important here. Humans couldn't have survived at the "long term average" - we evolved to live in the "cold period," and dinosaur age conditions would likely kill us and many other species. DownGoer (talk) 15:20, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

They have totally messed with old temperature data. They "adjust" old thermometers to make them fit the data they want. 184.66.160.91 03:30, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Why exactly do you think that? It's a pretty bold claim to suggest that every source of temperature data is fudged, especially because many people in powerful positions don't believe in climate changes and thus have no motivation to keep the secret. That being said, if you have definitive evidence of these alterations, I might change my mind. DownGoer (talk) 06:26, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

You don't want to hear this, but my take is: 1. Global warming is probably real. 2. Global warming is probably exacerbated by human activity. 3. There is no possible way of averting global warming by reducing the output of greenhouse gases from human activity. WILL NOT HAPPEN. Oh well! As Cueball says, it should be a wild ride. 108.162.219.223 01:13, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Note: "if we keep people from understanding just a little longer" ... as if someone need to actively do something to prevent majority of people of understanding hard to explain scientific topic. Most people still didn't accepted the fact that debts are supposed to be paid, and that's simple arithmetics. -- Hkmaly (talk) 10:11, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Actually, debt owed by entities that emit currency is very different from debts owed by other economic entities. It's very far from "simple arithmetics" (and that's the reason there is such a thing as a central bank). 173.245.53.197 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Thanks 199.27.128.144 for your fix on my bad HTML mishap here. If you would have an account here I could talk to you directly. --Dgbrt (talk) 00:19, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

It's been eight years since this comic, so I guess it ended up being the latter. Except I don't think anyone is embarrassed for the inaccuracies in the climate models. No warming for 17 years 5 months108.162.219.15 15:12, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

• The idea that there has been a "pause" in global warming has LONG since been debunked as completely false. And you're citing a website that is based on science denial and deliberately false claims about climate change.
• Whoa, that was some tricky axis manipulating. Look at the difference in scale between the positive and negative y-axis: it makes it look like temperature changes balances out by exaggerating the decreases. Also to note, it shows the change in temperature, not actual temperature. A better source: https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/ 172.68.182.98
• 172.68.182.98 is right, though the axis manipulation might not be important (assuming they actual did the regression). What is really important is what the chart was actually graphing. It's graph the trend in temperatures changes. The regression line is constant at ~0.24 degrees Celsius per year. That means that on average, the world has been warming a quarter of a degree Celsius. That may seem small, but even small changes can be dangerous. (Source: [1] WHO). Also, that's only one source made by one person, who doesn't even have a degree in math or science. That doesn't make everything he says automatically false, but it does suggest that he may not know how to properly analyze a graph or take a regression. DownGoer (talk) 06:26, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

The science of global warming is irrelevant. Every posed ecological disaster hasn't been an effort to advert it, but a political ploy to shift money from earners to consumers. Why did plans like putting windmills everywhere (which requires a lot of oil and oil burning, and uses up natural water supplies) get all the government funding, while actual solutions like fuel cells and nuclear got shut down (which CAN solve our dependency on oil if they only had the same funding as the wind/solar groups)? Because the top liberals were heavily invested in wind/solar, and were using politics as a way to give that group more financial success than the market would naturally allow. Why did they invest in such failures? Because they didn't understand the technology and science of the problem. If liberals had invested in fuel cell and nuclear, they would have won.Cflare (talk) 15:48, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

             Perhaps because they were scared of nuclear because of meltdowns. As for fuel cells, I have no idea why they did                                                 that. Transuranium (talk) 10:31, 27 May 2016 (UTC)Transuranium

Might want to look at the last 17 years and 6 months or maybe even 7 months. -- Flewk (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I suspect that this is the ONLY scientific question referenced in this comment that cites a percentage of people who agree with your position as a scientific argument. Just sayin'. Signed, 108.162.216.230 15:36, 27 January 2020 (UTC)