nshepperd comments on Some Heuristics for Evaluating the Soundness of the Academic Mainstream in Unfamiliar Fields - Less Wrong
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When dealing with the possibility of ideology influencing results one needs to be careful that one isn't engaging in projection based on one's own ideology influencing results. Otherwise this can turn into a fully general counter-argument. (To use one of the possibly more amusing examples, look at Conservapedia's labeling of the complex numbers and the axiom of choice as products of liberal ideology.)
Also, an incidental note about the issue of climate change: we should expect that most aspects of climate change will be bad. Humans have developed an extremely sensitive system over the last few hundred years. We've settled far more territory (especially on the coasts) and have far more complicated interacting agriculture. Changing the environment in any way is a change from the status quo. Changing the status quo in any large way will be economically disruptive. Note however that there are a handful of positives to an increase in average global temperature that are clearly acknowledged in the literature. Two examples are the creation of a north-west passage, and the opening of cold areas of Russia to more productive agriculture (or in some cases, any agriculture as the permafrost melts).
JoshuaZ:
That is true. The easy case is when clear ideological rifts can be seen even in the disputes among credentialed experts, as in economics. The much more difficult case is when there is a mainstream consensus that looks suspiciously ideological.
This sounds like it's probably a hoax by hostile editors. It reminds me of the famous joke from Sokal's hoax paper in which he described the feminist implications of the axioms of equality and choice. Come to think of it, it might even be inspired directly by Sokal's joke.
I thought Conservapedia as a whole was a hoax. Poe's law...
As far as I can tell a lot of it is a hoax, though the founder may have a hard time telling which editors are creative trolls and which editors (if any) are serious.
It is periodically asserted by people claiming to be former contributors to Conservapedia that the founder simply endorses contributors who overtly support him and rejects those who overtly challenge him.
If that were true, I'd expect that editors who are willing to craft contributions that overtly support the main themes of the site get endorsed, even if their articles are absurd to the point of self-parody.
I haven't made a study of CP, but that sounds awfully plausible to me.
You will be unsurprised to hear that CP has played out in precisely that manner: a parodist coming in, dancing on the edges of Poe and wreaking havoc by feeding Schlafly's biases.
I am hereby stealing the phrase "Dancing on the edge of Poe."
I figured I should let you know.