Sealioning Climate Change
Dec. 30th, 2016 09:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chris_gerribScott Adams, the cartoonist behind Dilbert, has developed an interesting tick. This first manifested itself with him predicting with 99% certainty that Trump would win the election. The tick manifests itself as him just spit-balling and finding the liberal side of an argument unconvincing and/or unpersuasive. He then spends an inordinate amount of time detailing why said argument is flawed while protesting that he's really for the liberal side.
Some Internet denizens define that as Sea-Lioning, or specific, pervasive form of aggressive cluelessness, that masquerades as a sincere desire to understand. However one defines it, I find it irritating. The most recent example is "The Illusion of Knowledge" in which Adams argues that no non-scientist can evaluate the claims of climate science because BOTH sides look 100% convincing to the under-informed.
My immediate response was not printable in a family newspaper. My more reasoned response is below:
The problem with the the "unknowable" argument becomes clear if you substitute "medicine" or "electricity" for "climate change." How can a lay person evaluate the effectiveness of a medical treatment or the safety of a wiring system? They can't - they have to rely on experts.
The question then becomes which experts to trust. This starts with motive. We generally assume that our doctors aren't trying to kill us and our electricians aren't trying to burn our houses down, so we take their advice. Killing patients (besides being illegal) is costly (dead people don't need a doctor) and electricians who botch up wiring get sued. So when our doctor says "stop smoking" we assume we're getting sound advice.
People who argue against man-made climate change have to demonstrate a motive and a reward for climatologists to lie. They haven't. The fossil fuel industry is glad to fund climate studies that support burning their products, just like tobacco was glad to fund studies showing the safety of smoking. In both cases, arguing against Big Industry gets the scientists making the argument a lot of grief for little reward.
Some Internet denizens define that as Sea-Lioning, or specific, pervasive form of aggressive cluelessness, that masquerades as a sincere desire to understand. However one defines it, I find it irritating. The most recent example is "The Illusion of Knowledge" in which Adams argues that no non-scientist can evaluate the claims of climate science because BOTH sides look 100% convincing to the under-informed.
My immediate response was not printable in a family newspaper. My more reasoned response is below:
The problem with the the "unknowable" argument becomes clear if you substitute "medicine" or "electricity" for "climate change." How can a lay person evaluate the effectiveness of a medical treatment or the safety of a wiring system? They can't - they have to rely on experts.
The question then becomes which experts to trust. This starts with motive. We generally assume that our doctors aren't trying to kill us and our electricians aren't trying to burn our houses down, so we take their advice. Killing patients (besides being illegal) is costly (dead people don't need a doctor) and electricians who botch up wiring get sued. So when our doctor says "stop smoking" we assume we're getting sound advice.
People who argue against man-made climate change have to demonstrate a motive and a reward for climatologists to lie. They haven't. The fossil fuel industry is glad to fund climate studies that support burning their products, just like tobacco was glad to fund studies showing the safety of smoking. In both cases, arguing against Big Industry gets the scientists making the argument a lot of grief for little reward.
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no subject
Date: 2016-12-30 11:31 pm (UTC)