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21 sats \ 7 replies \ @quark 27 Jun \ parent \ on: How To Deprogram Yourself alter_native
I like many of his videos but some parts here have more conspiracy taste than I like. For example you cannot compare 97% of scientists agreeing to climate change to 97% of people agreeing on child sacrifice. But I know he just tries to be provocative. I just don't like conspiracy theorists and anti science to be related to Bitcoiners. This is not good for Bitcoiners which I consider intelligent persons.
It's an argument ad absurdum. The point is that just saying "97% of experts agree" doesn't prove anything because we know false views have prevailed before.
Arguments should be on their merits, rather than appeals to authority. I was only half paying attention to that part of the video, but that's how I took it.
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Yes but still unfortunate. I like Bitcoin because I can verify and not trust. I like science because scientists do experiments all over the world, use knowledge and technology, all to verify and not trust and publish all the information so that others can keep verifying. 97% of them verifying means much more to me than a small group of religious people saying something that needs trust and we cannot verify. It is quite different. Similar absurdity things, are said by very influential politicians to manipulate the masses and I'm tired of it.
Sorry I have too much of a scientific brain. I'm too old to change that now haha
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You're mistaken about what that 97% number means, though. Most climate scientists don't even work on anthropogenic warming and there have been major scandals in the field where prominent researchers were caught forging data after going unnoticed for years.
In the sciences broadly, it's almost all trusting without verifying. That's why there's an ongoing replication crisis across pretty much every field.
The ideal of science is great, but it's wildly divergent from the practice of science.
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Could have been a scientist or two caught forging data? Ok. But all of them? I don't think so. That's why the experiments need to be verified many before it is considered truth. It is like bitcoin blocks confirmations. The more confirmations you get, the safer your transactions is.
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No need to catch people faking anything, you select them through grants and promotions and researchers know what they need to give to their funders/admins if they want to stay in the game. In fields so complex the reproducibility is difficult and accountability close to none
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On a project I'm currently working on a colleague said to me "Can you imagine if we find _____?" Context withheld to protect the innocent, but everyone knows what the acceptable findings are going into a research project, when you're in certain fields.
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Climate Gate, as it's called, was a huge scandal and the researchers faced essentially no consequences for their misconduct. In fact, Judith Curry, another prominent climate scientist was essentially driven out of academia for calling out the malfeasance.
The Replication Crisis has revealed that most scientific findings don't replicate, that's not always due to malfeasance, but it often is. Replication studies don't publish well, so nobody does that vital work. People are also afraid of criticizing their colleagues.
I'm telling you from inside the science machine that it doesn't work the way you think it does. There's lots of political bias, group think, censorship, and outright fraud. I was a research assistant in climate science for years and now I'm an economist. I've seen how the sausage is made, so to speak, and it isn't what people think it is.
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