Another take on the ignorance of N. Ángel Pinillos’s NYT article. From WM Briggs
One reason people doubt global-warming-of-doom is because of lousy philosophers like N. Ángel Pinillos (note the New York Times-sophisticated inclusion of the accent). He wrote a piece entitled (in some places) “What philosophy tells us about climate change skeptics.”
Let’s read this essay and see how awful thinking can be and still make it into the “paper of record.”
It starts well, but ends badly.
No matter how smart or educated you are, what you don’t know far surpasses anything you may know. Socrates taught us the virtue of recognizing our limitations. Wisdom, he said, requires possessing a type of humility manifested in an awareness of one’s own ignorance.
A limitation of Á Pinillos’s is ignorance of climate science.
According to NASA, at least 97 percent of actively publishing climate scientists think that “climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely caused by human activities.” Americans overwhelmingly agree that the federal government needs to take significant action. In a recent poll [of citizen’s who can’t say why the sky is blue, let alone delineate the intricacies of climatology]…
Now you’d think Á P. before he gave a lecture of knowledge about global warming would take the trouble to look simple things up. But no. Instead he obviously relied on the media (yes, really), and on the opinion of people who haven’t a clue about, say, parcel theory.
The canard about “97 percent” is particularly stupid. First, 100% of scientists agree that man influences the climate. How could we not? But that in itself, as Á does not understand, does not call for any specific action. And 97%? Did Á even read “Climate Consensus and ‘Misinformation’: A Rejoinder to Agnotology, Scientific Consensus, and the Teaching and Learning of Climate Change“, which shows that the consensus over doom is more like 1%? No, sir, he did not.
Did Á even know to look for this paper? No, sir, he did not. He knows so little about the subject, he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.
He knows less about probability. Which is even more embarrassing, because nobody was expecting him to discuss the limitations of high-altitude cloud parameterizations. But we did think a professional philosopher would know the difference between decisions, knowledge, and probability. He doesn’t.
Suppose you observe a shopper at the convenience store buying a lottery ticket. You are aware that the probability that he will lose the lottery is astronomically high, typically above 99.99 percent, but it’s hard to get yourself to sincerely say you know this person will lose the lottery.
Look here, Á, if the shopper knew he would lose, he wouldn’t buy the damn ticket. We don’t know the shopper is going to lose. We only know it’s likely. Which means we also know he might win.
We can only know what is true. But we can believe anything. Right, Á?
If I had to bet whether the shopper would win, I’d have to think about the consequences about what would happen if I win or lose the bet, and the probability I calculate the shopper has the winning numbers. Probability is thus not decision. And my bet the shopper would lose is not knowledge he would. It’s a guess: a prediction.
Á does not grasp these distinctions, which are basic. He makes the same blunders in an example about his grading homework. I leave casting light on these as my own homework exercise for you, dear reader.
According to social psychology, climate change deniers tend to espouse conservative views, which suggests that party ideology is partly responsible for these attitudes. I think that we should also think about the philosophical nature of skeptical reactions, an apolitical phenomenon.
The standard response by climate skeptics is a lot like our reaction to skeptical pressure cases. Climate skeptics understand that 97 percent of scientists disagree with them, but they focus on the very tiny fraction of holdouts. As in the lottery case, this focus might be enough to sustain their skepticism.
Only a nincompoop uses the term “climate change denier”. Nobody denies the climate changes (I except lunatics). Knowing man influences the climate does not indicate any particular action, nor does it even imply that any such change is necessarily bad. Plus, climate skeptics (many of them) do not understand that 97% nonsense.
HT/Kip
IMO …
N. Ángel Pinillos’ shear density of philosophical idiocy will actively reduce the IQ of all New York Times readers.
People are stupid and the smarter, the stupider.
No fool like a wise fool.™
“First, 100% of scientists agree that man influences the climate. How could we not?”
Oh, really? In general? Or CO2 specific?
As a degreed and registered professional mechanical engineer with decades of actual experience I consider myself an applied scientist.
For RGHE to function as advertised the surface of the earth must radiate 396 W/m^2 as a BB. Because of the contiguous participating media, i.e. atmospheric molecules, transferring energy through non-radiative processes such BB radiation is not possible. The upwelling LWIR is a “what if” calculation without a physical existence.
No upwelling means no GHG energy loop and no greenhouse effect, no CO2 warming and no man-caused climate change.
Besides, the atmosphere does not warm the earth by 33 C, but by reflecting 30% of the ISR reduces the incoming energy from 6.28 E17 kJ/h to 4.40 E17 kJ/h and cooling the earth.
While mankind can influence weather/climate by seeding clouds, cities creating UHI, geo-engineering, can mess with the oceans and nuclear winter, his CO2 and GHGs do nothing.
I’ve explained why RGHE does not work. You defend why it does. That’s called science. Ad hominem and appeals to authority don’t count.
Experiments in the classical style:
https://principia-scientific.org/debunking-the-greenhouse-gas-theory-with-a-boiling-water-pot/
No 33 C and K-T
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6466699347852611584
My new “Hero of the night!” commenter.
Yes, with all of the pretend calculations, convenient estimates and false consensus claims, 97%, 99.7%, 100%, etc. to build baseless straw men in order to stuff imaginary rectal derived philosophy arguments where the original mass media authors are apparently paid by the word on their roads to CAGW perdition.
“For the same reasons as the absurd topics listed above, references to the “Slaying the Sky Dragon” Book and subsequent group “Principia Scientific” which have the misguided idea that the greenhouse effect doesn’t exist, and have elevated that idea into active zealotry, WUWT is a “Slayer Free Zone”. There are other blogs which will discuss this topic, take that commentary there.”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/policy/
I have always thought that a degree in Philosophy is not worth the paper that it is writtton on. I recall that a a Greek way back said something on the lines of
“I think, therefore I am”
MJE
Really? A Greek said it before Descartes? Amazing.
Well if we look at the full expansion of the argument as for example that of Krauth :
“That cannot doubt which does not think, and that cannot think which does not exist. I doubt, I think, I exist.”
Similar cocepts can be found in :
The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle
De Civitate Dei and Enchiridion of Augustine of Hippo
Decartes was the great faker – as a wag pointed out , to think is to think of something, such as diner. “I think of diner, therefore I am”. Awesome.
Now for some real philosophy :
To think is to act, as in actually do something. Which is why the faker never discovered kinetic energy, and pulled 7 rules out of a hat for billiard ball motion, all absurd.
More concisely – to exist is to act.
If I were to claim “sharks cause climate change” what percentage of readers would understand the probable truth behind this statement?
I am not interested in how climate skeptics behave psychologically. I am interested in why we have a large social population triggered by fear of death, and industries such as environment and climate that use fear of death as a trigger for attention and fund raising. Climate doom prophecy is simply the pagan equivalent of the End Days, Armageddon, Rapture, Coming of Christ, repackaged, which tells us that religions addresss our deepest fears and anguish. In particular the anguish that we cannot live forever causes many to delude themselves and project to others the belief we are Gods, run the universe, control the earth and all it does, and with that, shall have eternal life. Recent trends by environmentalists have jumped from climate to man controlling volcanoes and earthquakes. This has not taken hold, but they keep cycling through it, to find a moment in time that it socially sticks. Man is bad, man causes bad climate, volcanoes, earthquakes, droughts, floods, anything bad. With man in charge, all we have to do is strip naked, paint our bodies red, and run into the streets screaming how we love mother earth, and we shalt be saved and have eternal life.
+10
It is amazing how climate extremists are afraid to actually ask climate skeptics what they believe and to actually quote what skeptics say.
Pick your subgroup of skeptics and you can prove anything you want.
“Only a nincompoop uses the term “climate change denier”. Nobody denies the climate changes (I except lunatics).”
A statement like this appears weekly on WUWT. But it is uncharitable, and thus a philosophical no-no, because that phrase is obviously meant as shorthand.
OTOH, what it is shorthand for is “catastrophic climate change denier.” Since warmists are shy about being explicit about their position by labeling it clearly, they shrink from seeing their equation written out.
I guess our riposte should be, “No, I’m a CATASTROPHIC climate change denier.” This is better than my previous response, “The argument isn’t about AGW, but CAGW,” which isn’t as snappy as my new version.
PS: AGW is alarmists’ “motte”; CAGW is their “bailey.”
The defenders of the consensus claim it is unfair to use the word “catastrophe” in regards to what they believe. No matter that they rely on catastrophic outcomes to push their own side’s policies.
The basic problem with the warmists is that they use climate change is de-facto global warming. This is wrong;
In the case of human influence, the non-greenhouse effect part of human influence, namely land use and land cover changes of which urban-heat-island and rural-cold-island effects are part. Nobody is denying this fact.
There is natural variability part in climate change. This includes precipitation and temperature. Even the IPCC & UNFCCC definition accepted this.
In the case of greenhouse effect, nobody is denying the fact that temperature change with Sun existing;
The issue that is in question is: Is there unlimited energy from the Sun to influence the temperature with the increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The answer is negative. The energy is fixed. Thus, even if greenhouse gases levels increase in the atmosphere, the change in temperature is insiginificant over the maximum energy limit. So, anthropogenic greenhouse gases [part of greenhouse gases] increase after industrialization has no impact. Because of this, warmists/modelers unable to fix the climate sensitivity factor. As a result each one predicts something, something??? wasting computer use and thus energy that was produced producing greenhouse gases.
Warmists are the Skeptics, hypocrites!!!
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Until I can go for a swim in Lake Michigan on February 1st…. The climate has not changed, period.
It is December 2nd. It is cold as every year. There has been snow as every year. The leaves have all fallen as every year. NOTHING HAS CHANGED. A degree or two average up or down does not make for a change in climate.
You guys have your heads up your rear ends. My god I would love it to get warmer… but it’s not. I just got done cleaning up my yard because of 6″ of heart attack snow that thinned out my front tree.
The climate has not changed.
Bravo
“And that 97% meme just won’t die!”
It would be fun to track the real number over time.
The insidious argument this “philosopher” proposes is that we should stop thinking in terms of knowledge and start thinking in terms of probabilities. A probability is based on a large body of data, but the quality of the data and its relevance to the question at hand is always suspect. Data can be assembled and massaged to to confirm any pre-existing bias. Witness the Hockey Stick. This reduces to the thesis that a group opinion must be right because it is the majority, and the (false 97%) can’t be wrong. Which was probably where philosophy started, when the first philosopher slunk off after being driven out of the group by sticks and stones, and started thinking by himself.
Philosophy began in a cave where 7 captives were chained, discussing shadows on the wall, calculating probabilities, betting on outcomes.
1 was yanked out and saw what was going on, a fire with statues and all kinds of activity casting shadows. He rushes back to the comrades in the murky dark exclaiming he knows that light is the cause, half blinded!
Reaction from former friends : look you cannot even see the shadows anymore, you know less than before! They stoned him out of the cave.
Who ever said it was easy?
By the way the prisoners were all reading the NYT, in the murky dark, the original version in stone.
Not much can be worse that what the |CBC in Canada just put out:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/climate-change-psychology-1.4920872
Those words lay bare the root of his problem. He thinks he knows what “the standard response by climate skeptics” is, when he does not know it at all. If he had taken the trouble to speak to a few such people he might start to realize how wrong he is. I suspect he has never actually spoken, and listened to, even a single skeptic to find out what they think, never mind survey enough of them to find a standard response.
If he ran a corporation it would already be bankrupt, because he never did any market research to find out why the company didn’t have customers willing to buy his product. It is no less depressing to see a university academic doing no research into a topic they were writing about in an official capacity.
And what confirmation bias tells us about global warming alarmism and eco wackoism.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/08/03/confirmationbias/
1) A false straw man.
2) Late night television fake documentaries.
3) All content are based on rumors, activist claims and gross assumptions.
That the author, one N. Ángel Pinillos believes it can construct convincing opinions based upon such unrigorous sources while itself is constructing nonsense precepts using colorful empty “pearls of wisdom” and formulaic consensus precautionary logic, is classic philosophy as taught by obviously overfunded universities with talentless staffing.
Say what!?
As soon as anyone claims “100% of scientists”, you know they are blowing smoke from all orifices!
Before any small group of people attain 100% agreement the overlying conditions, context and topic must be so generalized as to be meaningless, or failure to agree is imminent death.
I doubt you can get any group to reach 100% agreement that climate changes, until the meaning of climate and change are stretched into empty words.
That “N. Ángel Pinillos believes” such nonsense and is willing to waste any published space, indicates that N. Á is oblivious to the relatively accurate though very generic polls that “shows that the consensus over doom is more like 1%?”
“No, sir, he did not.” is accurate!
The great thing about climate political science is it self-identifies problems in a great many fields of study simultaneously and across institutions. It is also driving a monumental wedge between real science and publicly funded science policy crusades. If the enforcers of the ether theory had only had advocacy groups and the media, there would be no alternatives allowed no matter what real science came along to contradict it. The same goes for continental drift, fusion physics, and black holes.
Beavers affect the climate, termites affect the climate, lightning-lit forest fires affect the climate, bees, birds,… What all these diatribes on human caused climate change have in common is the overriding presumption that humans are bad, so its enough to simply say its caused by humans. Hey that’s gotta be bad. Hey, its got to be so bad that we have to control this destructive agent’s every move. Ebola is caused by a malignant virus. We can assume that this is bad for humans and maybe other primates. Just mention Ebola. Just mention human climate change.
Based on the paleoclimate record and the work done with models, one can conclude that the climate change we are experiencing today is caused by the sun and the oceans over which mankind has no control. Despite the hype, there is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate and plenty of scientific rationale to support the idea that the climate sensitivity of CO2 is zero.
The AGW conjecture is based on only partial science and cannot be defended. For example, the AGW conjecture depends upon the existence of a radiant greenhouse effect caused by trace gases in the Earth’s atmosphere with LWIR absorption bands. No such radiant greenhouse effect has ever been observed, in a real greenhouse, in the Earth’s atmosphere, or any where else in the solar system for that mater. The radiant greenhouse effect is science fiction so hence the AGW conjecture is nothing but science fiction.