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cthulhubert t1_j3xjtgd wrote

Reply to comment by Bob_Skywalker in Why are coastlines crinkly near the poles but smooth in the tropics? by emsot

Oh man. That's something that's bugged me for as long as I've been on the Internet. It is absolutely amazing how often you can describe a trend, and somebody will mention one of the exceptions to that trend, and sit back smugly as if they've somehow proven your understanding of a statistical distribution is wrong.

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Boatsnbuds t1_j3xpbkv wrote

Sorta like climate-change deniers using a particularly cold week to "prove" their point.

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WhalesVirginia t1_j41o223 wrote

IIRC the last like year or two, has seen a reduction in average global temperatures(i haven't taken the time to verify this so grain of salt). As opposed to the predicted models that used exponential growth rates to pollution.

Not a denier. I just think a lot of the internet has never really looked that close into whatever they spew about science, and have a limited view of statistics. For me it's been a while since I've dived into this particular topic, hence my big qualifier on my claim, but there's this strange faith like behavior everyone has about science, like you aren't allowed to question it, despite unlike in religion, science has all of their data and methods public record.

Idk it just irks me the wrong way when I try to have a real discussion about something, like expressing the flaws I see in the methods, and the discussion is taken over by imbalanced expletives(meaningless statements) and politics.

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bitofrock t1_j42etdr wrote

Uhm, the thing about science is that the only way to improve on the science is more science.

An opinion or pointing out a possible flaw doesn't advance science, but may be a part of future science that advances things further.

But if you don't have a solid grasp on the science done so far, then you're just having opinions that are unlikely to make much of an impact or be considered unless you have substantial credentials in the field.

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WhalesVirginia t1_j42o906 wrote

> Uhm, the thing about science is that the only way to improve on the science is more science.

The way to improve is not just more science. It's better science. Something like 80% of papers are never read after publishing, a surprisingly large number of papers are retracted. We have a quality problem, not a quantity.

>An opinion or pointing out a possible flaw doesn't advance science, but may be a part of future science that advances things further.

Being critical of models advances science. It shows where a model fails. My issue is with the politicization rising up science because it fits a narrative. There's plenty of great climate science, but there is plenty of kind iffy stuff that hits front page reddit on the daily.

> But if you don't have a solid grasp on the science done so far, then you're just having opinions that are unlikely to make much of an impact or be considered unless you have substantial credentials in the field.

Well obviously.

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