whpearson comments on You're Entitled to Arguments, But Not (That Particular) Proof - Less Wrong

57 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 15 February 2010 07:58AM

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Comment author: Bo102010 15 February 2010 01:32:01PM 1 point [-]

I've had a lot of internal battles over what to make of the AGW debate, and finally decided that if I'm willing to trust in science on evolution vs. intelligent design, I have to trust in science on AGW vs. nuh uh! as well.

After further reflection, I think my skepticism of AGW was motivated by a disdain for the people who use it as a vehicle for policy - "How convenient for you that there's a huge global problem that calls for exactly the same policies you were calling for earlier!"

I still think that policies designed to mitigate AGW (ethanol, handouts to "green" companies, handouts to well-connected polluters with restrictions on less-well-connected-ones) might be worse than the effects of AGW. But that's not a legitimate reason for arguing against AGW.

Comment author: whpearson 15 February 2010 01:54:43PM 4 points [-]

I personally distinguish between branches of science and the amount of trust I give them. The simpler the things they are talking about and the more successful the field is at making predictions the more weight I give it.

Climate science has a number of complex feed back loops such as increasing plant growth and is regularly changing its predictions as it incorporates more details into the simulation (although they are all trending positive temperature increase), so that I don't assign it the same weight as the predictions of a particle physicist on particles in standard conditions.