On 9 April 2014 13:14, chris peck <[email protected]> wrote: > *>> If in some general discussion of climate change someone says (as a > convenient shorthand) that "97% of climate scientists agree that AGW is a > fact", what is the logical fallacy they are committing? I'd like to know so > I can avoid it in future myself.* > > if you are just pointing out that a consensus exists and nothing more then > it isn't a fallacy. This consensus exists. > > If on the other hand you are pointing out that the consensus exists for > some other end, ie as a means of convincing people of the truth of any > statement other than '97% of scientist think climate change is occurring', > then it is a fallacy. Things are not true because people believe them right? >
As I've already said, the fact that a scientific consensus exists has various implications. It indicates the that the views in question are the results of the scientific method - that they are theories based on research and subjected to experimental testing and peer-review. This is why I mentioned postmodernism earlier. Advocates of pomo think that because all scientific belief is falsifiable and subject to revision, it "isn't any better than" the beliefs of, for example, religion. However they still call in a plumber rather than an exorcist to fix a leaky tap, and travel by jet rather than using astral projection - and turn red and wave their hands a lot when asked to explain exactly why they do so, if science isn't any better than any other belief system. So it's disingenuous to simply say that "things are not true because people believe them" as though it applies equally in all contexts. A belief within the scientific enterprise - a falsifiable, subject to revision, tested by experiment and peer-reviewed belief - is quite different from, for example, a religious belief. Hence, the fact that 97% of climate scientists agree on a particular hypothesis indicates that that hypothesis is the best explanation that thousands of people have been able to come up with to explain the observed facts, and that this hypothesis has been tested by experiment and peer review, and hasn't as yet been falsified. Hence one should, if one believes that the scientific method is a (reasonably) reliable tool, accord it a (reasonable) degree of likelihood, as one would any other theory with that level of support - for example the existence of the Higgs particle, or the link of smoking with lung cancer. So it appears I wasn't committing a logical fallacy after all. (Phew!) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
