On the one hand the idea of a reverse search engine is somewhat appealing, on the other hand; it's Clippy for the internet.

""" I see you're trying to deny global warming. Would you like to:

  1. research the available facts and science?

  2. Have an authority figure you trust tell you, you're wrong?

  3. Meet other like-minded singles?

On a more serious note; a marketing service that put it's customers brands in front of people who didn't yet know that those products were what they were looking for would be an awesome startup from a business perspective and a somewhat creepy one from a human perspective.

e.g. You're talking about medical condition X, therefore I shall try to sell you drug Y even if you don't mention Y or drugs at all in your search terms/blog post/etc. And I don't care if you even knew that drugs for X existed.

Some programmer assumes that he is right and others are wrong, so he writes a bot to chase down people he might disagree with and bombard them with one-liners.

And Technology Review thinks this is behavior worth promoting?

I suspect the reason is that they agree with the programmer.

Try it out for a bit with the roles reversed.

Doesn't feel quite the same, huh?

ADD: The assumption here is that there is no way you can believe in X. Therefore it is okay for me to write a bot that spams and pesters everybody who believes in X, since they are horribly misinformed.

Works great -- as long as you're omniscient.

Once again, I'm not claiming to know anything about global warming, other than knowing well enough to steer clear of arguing about it. So I can't speak to this specific case. However, from past experience with other controversies I understand the mindset behind this type of thing.

Replacing yourself with a chat bot is just like arguing in person, except that it doesn't try your patience or waste your time, only the other guy's, and it doesn't give you any opportunity to learn or be exposed to novel ideas.

I don't see any problem with this, as long as you're actually right when you do it. It's never a waste of time to truthfully tell someone that they're wrong, as long as you give them the information that's necessary for them to realize why.

And in my experience, most of the "novel ideas" that the anti-evolution folks have to offer while discussing evolution are very much worth skipping.

I think I still have their little blue book of "How life began" somewhere. They lent it to me, but never came back to collect it.

http://www.myspace.com/captaincreationandthegodrobots

They said they liked the music, but I never told them the name of the band - I kind of wish I had.

A lot of people will argue about any matter; climate change, religion, Middle East, economics or anything else, even if they now nothing about it and spend more time watching sitcoms than reading up on science or religion or anything.

Even if both sides of the argument are incorrect, if the second opinion was formed through rigorous scientific investigation and represents and the best understanding that we currently have, why should we treat it equally with the opinion that was not developed through any sort of discourse and research?*

* Assuming that methodology described in the article is sound, "...searches twitter for several hundred set phrases that tend to correspond to any of the usual tired arguments ..."

It's not about whether or not the facts he's spamming people with are right or wrong, it's the fact that he's doing it in the first place.

I wouldn't characterise it as spamming. He's sending the messages on one of his own twitter accounts. If he was auto-replying on other people's blogs, he might more accurately be accused of spamming.

http://twitter.com/ai_agw

It's not one of his accounts, it's a spam bot. A tongue in cheek, funny pictures, really obvious to computer scientist 'hey I'm a bot' account, but it's still a twitter spam bot.

And the bot is auto replying to random people's tweets. It clearly says so in the article.

It is a twitter account. He has the password to it, and presumerably no one else does.

That makes it his twitter account.

These are tweets on his own account.

It does raise the question of whether the means justify the end. As people in this thread have noted ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1867043, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1867162), that this technique may be more effective than a more neutral route. But again, I'm not condoning anything.

Then again, if half of your conversation can be replaced by [fill in the blank] your questions may be imprecise.

I think people on HN are used to thinking critically, so responses that disagree with or point out something incorrect about an article tend to get upvoted.

No, but I don't think that's what the parent was saying. I think you might be making the same mistake he was calling out: assuming the other side hasn't put any thought into their argument. Sometimes they haven't but sometimes, despite how radical the position may sound, they have put work into it.

I have a two part test to figure out whether someone's a skeptic or a denier:

1. Ask them some sort of question about their position - "Why do you think X", or "How do you explain this weakpoint in your argument?" Basically try and put them on the spot a bit.

2. If they're evasive, then ask them what sort of evidence it would take for them to change their mind.

If they can't give a good response to either of these questions, then they're a denier - if you can't defend your position, and you're not going to admit to any possibility of error, there's not much point in arguing.

Those who are convinced should indeed start taking action.

>And where do you draw the line?

That's up to the person. Some people have a threshold so high it will always be beyond our grasp to meet, some have a threshold of "higher probability score than any alternative" no matter how low the probability actually is (e.g. 5% chance vs 2%, 1%, etc.).

>at what point do you stop arguing and take it as fact?

Again, it's up to the person. But again, if the person doesn't accept something as fact I'm fine with that. I'm not fine with them presenting their unconvinced-ness as some kind of alternative "theory".

>When are you allowed to start actively advocating a particular theory?

When you have one. "The other guy is probably wrong" isn't a theory.

The solution goes nowhere though because China and India tell us we caused the problem and so we must unilaterally cut our consumption of greenhouse gases. Meanwhile Russia is building a big oil and gas network stretching into China totally outside the reach of the would be international climate regulators and cap and trade financial superstructure. Besides, cap and trade is just a way to pay corrupt politicians in developing countries to shut down industry and impoverish their citizens and better yet, starve their citizens by tearing up all their farm land and building inedible ethanol crops.

The irony is that the left are the ones who are super-enthusiastic about enacting draconian climate change legislation which dramatically increases the cost of energy for those in the lower income bracket and seriously handicaps the development and improvement in living standards of any developing country foolish enough to go along with the already smugly developed world's agenda.

BTW, Technology Review has really become quite ideological lately and is much less of a science magazine then it used to be.

I believe the left does not really care about people, especially poor people, at all. These people are just stepping stones or excuses to increase their power -- much the way wars and fear of terrorism are useful to the right.

I've learned enough economics and attempted to explain to people on the left in very straightforward economic terms how a given policy will actually hurt poor people, and never once have I managed to persuade a leftist to oppose that policy. They don't care, or they just decide that because I'm speaking economic science I must be a republican and therefore evil.

I am coming to believe that ideology inhibits thought.

Bingo! I think we have the whole climate denier phrasebook now...

Also: It reflects on the nature of hacker news that the snotty response has upvotes.

That's not 'snotty and counterfactual'. Respond to it.

Thus "Cap and trade" and all these other proposals [...] give governments dictatorial control over industry and people's lives....and they bring us closer to a global government.

ie. cap and trade == evil world government

If science is really on your side, why so evasive? Why are you arguing to the person rather than to the point?

See also: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1867917

So, you refuse to respond to arguments, you admit it, and you demand that people make arguments to someone else, and then you lie about me to accuse me of being evasive, and then you link to an argument you made where you confused me with someone else (after ignoring my previous arguments) to support the claim that I'm ignoring your arguments?

In short, you have attacked me, lied about me, ignored my argumments, not provided any arguments of your own, and instead linked to someone else's blog and demanded that your opponents debate them.

I think I'm done. You can continue to be evasive or make personal attacks. I can't stop you. But there is no point in wasting any more time on you.

You have, by the way, proven my point, by once again being a supporter of AGW who: 1. Is not familiar with the science. 2. Is unwilling or unable to make arguments. 3. Is unequipped to respond to scientific arguments. 4. Who rests their advocacy on the claims of others that tehy assert are "Scientists" 5. Engages in personal attack. 6. Engages in dishonest statements. 7. Rejects the scientific method.

You have demonstrated all of these, and this forces me to remain convinced in my belief that advocates of AGW are anti-science religious zealots.

Your comments demonstrate that quite clearly.

Sure, the snotty insult gets upvoted and the response pointing out that it is not useful or adding to the conversation gets downvoted. Votes are driven by ideology, not objectivity, eh?

I'm more dubious of the proposed solutions to global warming than anything as it looks highly like a band-aid infused with arsenic to me. Sure it'll kill the infection, but it could well kill you too.

Go nuclear, it's the lesser of the evils. Existing infrastructure can be cannibalized for it (access to roadways, rail or river, cooling pools, cooling towers, etc.) even if the power plant itself cannot be. Furthermore, the totality of all nuclear accidents in the world has caused less deaths than coal soot alone. Disregard the fact that coal contains radioactive compounds that are being vaporised and inhaled.

Interestingly, I know here in Canada at least, that many of the nuclear plants have become their own sort of nature preserve.

This is where the current environmentalist movement has really failed: "Don't burn shit, it's bad for the environment and it's bad for us" was a compelling story, because it's pretty obviously true and hard to fight back against. When environmentalism was all about smog, coal burning, and all that nasty stuff, it was hard to find much fault with it.

But now it's all about carbon. And global warming involves a lot more analysis to evaluate, to the point that even the most scientifically minded non-experts can't claim to fully understand the evidence for or against it (if they even have access to that raw evidence), not to mention all the possibilities of fudged data, which turn this more into a guessing game about who's telling the truth than a matter of science.

Instead of trying to stop global warming, maybe we should try living with it.

It would be a very modular way to construct an ocean city. Get them within 500m of each other and you'll be breaking no new ground to bridge the two modules. Get them within 200m and you've hit mundane in connecting them. What's more interesting is if you could use the span distances as agricultural land and keep the human sectors within the module footprint.

Considering the Petronius platform reaches about 530m underwater to a stable foundation and Burj Khalifa reaches 828m above ground, and the longest bridge is 552m. We could make a monstrous city without breaking any new ground.

Who cares if the ocean is rising if your city is built astride it?

I'd point you to the Maunsell Sea Forts. Every single one has survived ~70 years in the open ocean, the ones that haven't were plowed into by boats.

My suggestion is specifically to be a giant sea fort, and to build inside of the column and above it. My idea would be to go ridiculously large and create a second interior wall after sinking as a sort of levy from the true interior in case the exterior is damaged.

I think a good 100 year zero-maintenance survival of an ocean arcology is amazing. Beyond initial construction the idea would be to expand and build a harbor, which would further expand the lifetime by taking any mechanical wear off of the main structure and place it onto the harbor walls.

Furthermore, if you had a crane on one of the towers (which would be mandatory if you're building as you go) it would be a simple matter to move soil around in the water to create an artificial reef.

The real problem would come with what materials to use for construction of the rest of the arcology. If you go with steel, it means you're going to require a lot of maintenance because of the sea air. It has longevity, (think all oil rigs) however it won't last forever. However, if you go with aluminum it will genuinely last for ever. The oxidization rate for aluminum is pitifully small (I work with it, I know, we remove 3/16ths aluminum that has only begun chalking after 40 years - which is the coloring coming off, the metal itself is like new). However, you'll never be able to use steel on the structure in the presence of salt water. Even insulating them won't work if the joints are capable of being covered in ocean spray as the galvanic reaction will eat the aluminum as aluminum is used as a sacrificial anode for steel.

Impressed Current could be used, but that would mean electrifying your entire superstructure, which would defeat the point of making your arcology survivable.

Underwater habitation is a lot further off than people seem to think it is.

The bot provides citations.

Suppose that human-caused global warming is false. It would still be possible (and common) to make erroneous arguments about how humans aren't causing global warming.

Skepticism is great, but most people's pro-X or anti-X nonsense isn't thoughtful skepticism. It's noise.

This is a way of injecting signal back into the noise.

Here is someone providing no thought and adding nothing to the discussion, by definition, he is providing noise.

Just because you disagree with someone, doesn't mean what they say is nonsense.

The primary attribute of the global warming ideology is to reject, out of hand, the possibility that global warming is not human caused. It is not a scientific movement, it is an ideology that rejects science as its first basis. Not once have I seen a global warming proponent who was willing to debate it on a scientific basis, nor have I ever seen one who was willing to listen to scientific arguments. The global warming movement is an anti-science movement, and here he is providing random citations as if they were relevant to discussions he's not even seeing...

this is the most profound example of the anti-science nature of the global warming movement combined with the deaf ear that it advocates towards people who disagree, or who "question the science" (which is known, in scientific circles as providing an alternative hyptohesis, and is intrinsic to the process of science.)

Science is not done by debate. The issues are too complex to be conveyable in the cut and thrust of a discussion. There is a reason that the gold standard of scientific research is the peer review journal and not debates.

Until you understand this point, you aren't able to understand how wrong you are on this subject. The reason no one knowledgeable will engage in a debate is that they know how long it will take to explain to you all of the experiments that have been done that lead them to the conclusion that human-caused global warming is real. By explaining the experiments, I mean explaining in detail the methodology, the results, and the mathematical analysis. It is literally years of work. But here's the thing. Scientists themselves have done that work. Each experiments methodology and analysis is reviewed thoroughly by knowledgeable people before the result is accepted by the community.

Once you have educated yourself on this huge body of work, you too will understand the futility of engaging in a "debate" with someone too ignorant to know what they don't know. You will also understand just how strong the evidence for GW is.

Here by GW I presume you mean Man made GW. In that case, many of the proponents are also ignorant of how strong (or not) the evidence is. They simply assume that the people paid to know, do. That's not a valid assumption.

The increase of CO2 in the atmosphere is also something that is directly measurable, and indeed, if you just take the scientific records from the last 50 years, you see a large increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. We can reasonably speculate that this is due to the massive increase of burning of fossil fuels, as we know that burning fossil fuels releases CO2, and we know that we have massively increased the quantity of fossil fuels burned.

That is the basic case for AGW. Afterwards, we can start to look a feedback loops, changes in albedo, effects at high altitude etc, but the basis for AGW is what I just laid out, and is confirmed by measurement. If you want to knock of AGW as a scientific hypothesis, you have to propose an alternative model that describes the same data, along with an experiment that can be conducted that will enable us to identify if your theory or AGW is correct. No-one, and I do mean no-one, has been able to meet that simple challenge. AGW is quite simply the best explanation that we have that fits the data. Come up with a better alternative, get meteorologists to agree that it's valid, and then I'll listen to what climate change deniers have to say. Until then, they've got nothing and as far as I am concerned are dangerously delaying changes to our behaviour that are urgently needed to avert a serious threat to the very survival of the human race. That is all.

http://climate.nasa.gov/

Although that site doesn't really work without Flash.

And my point with the post you responded to was simply to point out that there is a lot of claims being made by people ignorant on the subject from both sides.

Do you understand what you did here? I explicitly said "pro-X or anti-X" to abstract out the truth-value of X. I don't care whether X is true or not [EDIT: for the sake of this argument]. Yet, because I used your keyword "nonsense", you assume that I'm calling human-global-warning (AGW) skeptics' arguments nonsense.

In effect, I've triggered your auto-rant based on a keyword. It's ok, I do it too. In fact, we all do it. In this sense we're no better than chat-bots. Or, turning it around, a well curated chat-bot has the possibility of providing answers that are at least as good as some of our worse answers.

> Here is someone providing no thought and adding nothing to the discussion, by definition, he is providing noise.

Why use the phrase "by definition". This is just a dogmatic assertion. You have to work the argument.

Thought can be recorded. If I hand someone a leaflet, is it noise, by definition? Of course not! So, if thought and care and good arguments are recorded, then handing out appropriate ones at appropriate times is far from noise. The actual arguments may or may not be nonsense, but that depends on their content, not their delivery mechanism.

No. In theory, he's responding to noise by providing signal that addresses it.

There's a big difference there, though whether it's justified depends quite crucially on the quality of the signal that he's spewing in response to the noise...

If someone disagrees with me, it doesn't mean they're not spouting nonsense.

If someone agrees with me, it doesn't mean they're making sense.

The thought he's adding is pre-cached. He's making a time-memory tradeoff. A memoized factorial function is still a factorial function, and a well-referenced refutation is still a well-referenced refutation, whether it's typed live or recorded in a bot.

But your point is well taken. I would find this incredibly annoying if I didn't agree with his viewpoint.

And he's not exactly chasing people down, he's just responding to people who are deliberately putting their opinions out there.

The earth is getting colder. The termperature changes we've seen over short, medium and long periods of time are consistent with the ice age pattern or solar heating. CO2 has been much higher in the past than it is today without causing a runaway greenhouse effect. CO2 does not absorb sufficient IR to support the global warming hypothesis, etc.

Global warming is a movement of people who do not care about these facts and just want to repeat, over and over, that "all scientists agree" (as if science was concensus based). I have yet to meet a global warming proponent who will actually argue on the science (or even is actually familiar with it) they all just repeat the same claims, or link to blogs of people who also don't understand the science, or link to papers who don't say what they want to claim they say.

Global Warming is a movement that rejects science, and has the ideological defense mechanism of smugly claiming to have a monopoly on science and that anyone who is a skeptic is spewing "anti-science nonsense."

Proof of the preceding claim is presented in the headline of the article in question (and virtually every other similar article out there.)

Ok, now go vote me down-- for science.

http://royalsociety.org/The-Science-of-Climate-Change-report...

Yes, that's right, the Royal Society, which, for those of you who are unfamiliar with science, is the oldest scientific organisation in the world, agrees with the IPCC reports, which I would cite as the secondary scientific evidence. For the primary evidence, just read all the articles cited by the IPCC.

What weighty scientific evidence points against global warming? Or is "real science" being suppressed?

Now, you're not wrong in saying that quoting the WWF in a scientific report seems to be a bit of a screw-up. It shouldn't have happened, and the reports need to be reviewed more carefully to stop it happening again — except careful review did find this mistake, it was corrected, and the rest of the report, all 976 pages, still stands.

Additionally, as I alluded to above, this is not the "The Physical Science Basis" of climate change report, which weighs in at 996 pages and no-one to my knowledge has found any mistakes even as bad as the glacier example.

You cannot disregard that particular IPCC report for one mistake; that would be absurd.

And even if the whole of the "Impacts, Adaption and Vulnerability" was hogwash, you still cannot claim climate change is not happening, as it is the "The Physical Science Basis" that gives (funnily enough) the scientific basis to climate change.

Bringing up the Himalayan glaciers shows a basic misunderstanding of the IPCC process, the scientific process and the magnitude of the error compared to the weight of scientific evidence for climate change. Please provide a peer-reviewed, or even non-peer reviewed, paper showing mistakes in the accepted literature and we'll talk.

I'll say it differently — if that's the biggest mistake you can find in the IPCC report (and given how much hand-wringing and complaining about it there has been, it's highly likely it was the biggest mistake), then you either have to accept climate change is real, or find a bigger mistake.

I really don't know why I'm arguing with you. Of course the IPCC regret the mistake. But they haven't all gone to commit seppuku over it. Refute the scientific basis report.

  > "To me the fundamental problem was that when the error
  > was found it was handled in a totally and utterly
  > atrocious manner<…>".

The real problem with the way you're arguing is that most of the meta-critiques that you've offered about the way mainstream climate change scientists act read almost exactly the same as the anti-evolution arguments that biologists have been assaulted with for decades. "Consensus is not how science is done?" Check. "The evidence goes against prevailing opinion?" Check. "Proponents won't argue the science and just parrot talking points?" Check. "They just shout people down as 'anti-science' when they disagree?" Check.

And all these claims may be true, hell, they probably are. The problem is, that's how scientists act when they're right, just as much as when they're wrong.

This doesn't bear on your claim at all, of course, and I have no intention of getting into a specific global warming dispute (I don't have the expertise or the interest, and frankly, I doubt there are many people here that do); but those arguments mean absolutely nothing, because they are always offered whenever people disagree with the prevailing consensus in a field, whether it's correct or not.

I've only met a couple climate scientists, but my impression was most definitely not that they were ideologically driven morons that simply want to push their preconceived notions on the world. I've always gotten the sense that they really felt that the data supported their claims. Now, that doesn't make them right, but be careful about assuming that they're just perpetrating a fraud for some reason. One of the most common mistakes people make when arguing issues like this is to assume that the other side actually knows (or secretly suspects) that it's wrong, and it's playing dirty to trick everyone else. This is rarely the case, if someone is wrong it's typically more likely that the evidence they've seen strongly suggests their hypothesis, which ends up blinding them to later evidence that might weaken it.

So what? In both cases people are claiming some party should fundamentally alter how they live (perhaps implicitly in the case of evolution) and/or what the believe based on their findings. Of course this will be faced with scrutiny! If the scientist is correct he/she should be able to prove it. If he/she thinks the evidence just strongly suggests their theory then it should be presented that way leaving the other side to simply agree to withhold judgment for now [1].

>but those arguments mean absolutely nothing, because they are always offered whenever people disagree with the prevailing consensus in a field, whether it's correct or not.

That makes no sense at all. Arguments are meaningless because they are used too much? Utterly illogical, have I misunderstood something here?

>I've always gotten the sense that they really felt that the data supported their claims. Now, that doesn't make them right, but be careful about assuming that they're just perpetrating a fraud for some reason.

I'm sure most of them do. But do you think people from the other side aren't just as convinced of their opinions? A big part of the problem is both sides assuming the other is disingenuous.

[1] Not being convinced is always valid unless there is concrete irrefutable proof. Forming new "theories" based on being unconvinced and evangelizing based on them is not as it is "argument from ignorance" (i.e. "See, they don't know, no one does! Therefor the true answer is...").

Maybe I didn't make my point very clearly, and you're right, as stated that's not really what I mean.

What I was trying to get at is that topical debates where one side disagrees with the scientific consensus typically degenerate rather quickly into complaints about the scientific establishment itself, and about how its barely-permeable idea membrane has a tendency to shut down a lot of criticism without fully addressing it.

And this is a valid point; unfortunately, it doesn't tell us anything at all about whatever specific claim is at hand, it just tells us that science puts up some pretty strong barriers to new ideas. Which, I might add, is the main reason that science continues to work, because for every scientific theory out there, even the ones with the most solid evidence, there are dozens of vocal lunatics that have their own pet theories that "aren't being taken seriously" or "have been silenced". In most scientific fields, apart from a few edge cases where data is weak or theory is spotty, there usually is a very strong consensus on most issues, and they're settled well enough that criticisms will usually be dismissed out of hand unless there's a very strong reason to take them seriously.

That doesn't mean that if someone is being "silenced" or shouted down they're necessarily wrong, but it does mean that they won't score any points by complaining about it. That treatment is leveled equally on all new ideas, and even in the best case scenario it usually takes new ideas (if correct) a generation or so to make their way through the barrier (mostly because the new generation thrives on tearing down as many ideas from the old generation as it can, whereas the old generation fights to preserve the status quo).

A big part of the problem is both sides assuming the other is disingenuous.

I absolutely 100% agree. Whenever someone shouts "Fraud!" in these arguments, I cringe, because it's rare that someone will spend a lot of time and effort pursuing scientific ideas that they actually think are wrong.

FWIW, I'm not taking any stand on AGW here, I really don't know enough about it to comment intelligently on the science. But the argument surrounding it, politicized as it's become, has a very similar tone to the arguments about evolution, right down to many of the same meta-critiques about the scientific process. Those talking points were not helpful when applied to evolution, so I'd rather they fell out of the lexicon, their presence in an argument immediately rings several alarm bells due to the similarities. The similar argument style would typically make me assume that the deniers/skeptics are just wrong (if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck...), though in this case I'm reserving judgment because a few of their other points seem like they might have some merit.

Not being convinced is always valid unless there is concrete irrefutable proof.

Hmm, I suspect a lot of Less Wrong-ers would disagree with you there, the entire philosophy of that site is based around the idea (one that I find very defensible) that we should usually be thinking statistically instead of right/wrong, and even if we can't know something for sure in the face of uncertainty, any pair of people that are thinking rationally and honestly should, in time, be able to at least agree on likelihood ratios between different possible outcomes by recursing through all the relevant priors and settling discrepancies that way. "Agree to disagree" is merely a way of cutting off that recursive settling of priors, and will sometimes have to happen in the interest of having finite length discussions, but the goal should always be to avoid that, or at the very least, pin down the lowest level disagreement about prior probabilities so that we at least know that both sides have updated their beliefs based on the same evidence.

For instance, if someone was honestly arguing that special relativity was wrong with an X% probability, that's not valid at all unless and until they can go through the various evidences in favor of it (which scientists claim puts its likelihood of being right at, say, 99.9% (we really should be talking likelihood ratios, not percentages, but you get the point)) and justify a set of priors that would lead to that X% probability. Similarly, scientists should be able to go through the evidences against special relativity and and justify granting them less authority, by showing their priors. Then we can look into those lower level assumptions, and do the same thing. Obviously this process can balloon, which is why scientists hate to do this kind of thing when they could be doing real work instead. :)

Fair enough but if incredibly impacting changes are being demanded based on this process then I think it merits a more thorough look than things that have less consequence if wrong.

>has a very similar tone to the arguments about evolution

For similar reasons. If one is to accept the complete evolution story that invalidates larges parts of the bible. Apologists can try to say those parts don't mean what they seem to say but a lot of people won't be happy with such an explanation because once you start that how can you know which parts do apply? The one's that haven't been refuted yet?

There is also a deserved level of skepticism on the (complete) subject of evolution because the loudest voices paint a picture of things that the science doesn't actually reflect (I'll spare us both further details to hopefully avoid this rabbit hole).

>Hmm, I suspect a lot of Less Wrong-ers would disagree with you there

A lot of people would disagree with me there, but personally I find it because they are unable to persuade. Their arguments, no matter how compelling, were not enough to sway what ever intended audience so they claim the other side is cheating. If the other side is pushing some snake oil theory as an alternative then perhaps they are, but if they're just not completely convinced then I think that's fair. We've had a very complete picture of gravity, only to find it was incomplete a couple of times now, for example.

>the entire philosophy of that site is based around the idea (one that I find very defensible) that we should usually be thinking statistically instead of right/wrong, and even if we can't know something for sure in the face of uncertainty, any pair of people that are thinking rationally and honestly should, in time, be able to at least agree on likelihood ratios between different possible outcomes by recursing through all the relevant priors and settling discrepancies that way.

The issue I have with the "rationalism" movement I'm seeing a lot of lately is that it seems to me that revolutionaries would have less opportunities in such a system. If you must believe the thing that is thought by consensus to have the highest probability of being true then the only way you could ever happen on something radical yet more correct in the end would be if you were pursuing something else that followed consensus but eventually contradicted another consensus-approved theory (e.g. this seems to happen a fair amount with quantum mechanics).

How many break-throughs have we had by people who simply didn't buy the consensus and looked for an alternative point of view? Weren't such people "irrational" until they ended up to appear more correct?

>For instance, if someone was honestly arguing that special relativity was wrong with an X% probability,

For me a good example of what I mean is dark matter. An Israeli scientist apparently didn't buy dark matter so he went out and discovered that the gravitational formula seems to just change at some distance. Of course people called him a heretic and such but as far as I know he hasn't been contradicted to this day. His findings could actually be related to dark matter some how, or total coincidence but it's possible that he could end up being right and everything we've invested in dark matter could turn out to have been chasing ghosts (I'm not going to assign probabilities on these two possibilities :).

I can't believe this gets upvotes. No citations, no evidence. Fucking depressing.

At least 95% of the argument with deniers is basically saying "No, you're wrong, that's been disproven by numerous studies - and here's the link". So yeah, arguing with them (or even just trying to put your point of view across) is annoying and tedious. Like any good programmer, Nigel's just automating away the drudgery.

Ok I will take that as a challenge to produce a link, so how is this.

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/originals/policy_driven_de...

Did you pass out?

My stance is that all the name calling (ie. deniers) does not help. In the field of science a healthy level of scepticism is required, and it helps further study. It is only when an issue becomes political (Global Warning) or religious (Evolution/Creationism) and leave their scientific basis that people get pilloried for saying they are not convinced and such n' such an issue is not up to scratch and needs more research to confirm or disprove it.

As the the 95% of people. Yes that stat would be right. 95% of people are always out of their depth in any argument of any complexity. But it says nothing about their position. I have lots of friends that believe things, but if faced with a skilled debtor can't hold their own position. Nor should they have to. Life is too busy to be on top of every issue.

Btw, that argument is #6 in the list of common denier arguments http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php

> In the field of science a healthy level of scepticism is required

Scepticism is fine, but the level of scepticism needs to be in proportion to the level of data available. The bulk of the data available strongly indicates that global warming is real, and is caused by humans. Which is why people who don't believe in global warming are now called 'deniers' - they're not really skeptics.

This is why actual debate is impossible-- you're not even aware of the terms of the science that are relevant to debate.

The absorbtion of CO2 and proportion in the atmosphere. The fact that the planet is getting colder, and that we're overdue for an ice age, and even the historical temperature cycles of the planet seem to be beyond your ken.

But you're great at calling people names and pretedning like you've got science on your side, while rejecting the scientific method itself.

Let me put it another way - what evidence would make you change your mind and accept that global warming is happening?

You did not provide any evidence at all. You just linked to propaganda from an advocate of your position who made assertions, sans evidence. Yet you linking to propaganda, as far as you're concerned, allows you to claim that you provided a laundry list of evidence-- yet you never even saw the evidence you claim you presented.

This is how your position is fundamentally anti-science. You don't understand the science, you haven't seen any evidence. But a link to a propagandist, proves, in your mind, that you're on the side of "Science".

By the way, the fact is, if you actually studied that data, it doesn't actually agree. Only be selectively choosing samples can you get tree ring data, ice core data, etc to agree, and only by distorting with arbitrary factors (also known as fraud) can you get weather station data and satellite data to agree.

In fact, the claim that all this data agrees with each other is itself a bit of scientific nonsense because it presumes this data were actually measuring the same thing in the same method and were actually independant.

Notice how you're completely avoiding the two questions that I've put to you. If you want me to continue to respond, or stop calling you a denier, or whatever, address either of those two questions. Here they are again:

How do you explain the correlation between surface temperature records and satellite temperature records, both of which show an increase?

or

What evidence would make you change your mind and accept that global warming is happening?

Must be nice to not have to do any thinking at all- you just link to some propagandist and have your opponents (anyone foolish enough anyway) debate them.

I fell for that once, and the person's response? "Well, I never said that!"

Meanwhile, you completely ignore the arguments that I have put forth, ignore the science and facts I have referenced, and continue to demand that I answer questions that presuppose facts you have not presented.

Maybe you're just incapable of debate. Or you don't care- because this is a religion and the science really means nothing to you.

The ball is in your court. You can respond, or you can continue to equivocate. I really don't care.

>You're saying that the only way to debate you is to go to some blog, do a bunch of research, construct arguments against that blog post, and then post them here?

He's asking you to look at scientific papers, the actual data on what's being argued here. This is completely reasonable when you're discussing a scientific matter. Looking at the evidence is how science is conducted.

> that presuppose facts you have not presented.

This would be the papers he linked.

> because this is a religion and the science really means nothing to you.

Look back up to your first sentence. Look back down here. Look up at that first sentence again. Do you see the inconsistency? He linked to the science. You refused to look at it.

Once again, I cannot honestly say that I know enough to make an informed opinion about this, but your arguing in this topic was horrible. You continually failed to address his links in every single post, and then complained he wasn't looking at the data.

Um....you do realize that's exactly what has happened, right?

And the response on the "skeptical science" web site, that new data has confirmed the hockey stick shape, doesn't sound convincing either. You can't both say "ok, the Mann analysis was wrong, and the field has moved on" and then say "subsequent data confirm the hockey stick" without needing to explain the remarkable coincidence that the initial incorrect study ended up getting exactly the same shape as the new "correct" data.

What I've not seen anywhere is an analysis of the extent to which projections about future warming is driven by the exact shape of the 20th century temperature record and how changing the temperature record would feed back on the GCM projections. If anyone knows of such a study, please post the reference.

My reading of it is that the original Mann analysis stands up, ie. Mann 1999 is largely correct, and that McIntyre's analysis is flawed. The Wahl 2007 paper contains some "interesting" language:

"Altogether new reconstructions over 1400–1980 are developed in both the indirect and direct analyses, which demonstrate that the Mann et al. reconstruction is robust against the proxy-based criticisms addressed. ... Also, recent “corrections” to the Mann et al. reconstruction that suggest 15th century temperatures could have been as high as those of the late-20th century are shown to be without statistical and climatological merit. Our examination ... leaves entirely unaltered the primary conclusion of Mann et al. (as well as many other reconstructions) that both the 20th century upward trend and high late-20th century hemispheric surface temperatures are anomalous."

"without statistical and climatological merit" - heh. Them's scientific fighting words.

I'm guessing you haven't been exposed to many arguments against AGW, or maybe not many good ones. But since you have an open mind, I'd suggest you look into the absorbtion of IR By CO2, the actual proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere, the lack of tropophere warming (where it should show up) and the historical correlation of CO2 and temperasture-- CO2 has been a lagging indicator and has, in the past, been much higher than it is now from natural events without causing a runaway greenhouse effect. These are basic facts that don't take much analysis and greatly undermine the AGW theory. Also, the planet is getting colder in recent years (past decade) while CO2 has been rising.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_temperature_measureme...

http://www.earthsystemtrends.org/2009/03/lower-tropospheric-...

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/index.php?report=global&ye...

The projections were not based entirely on the Mann temperature record. There are satellite data, other analyses, etc., and I haven't seen to what extent changing one of those data sets impacts the projections.

Respond! Don't just blindly downvote.

Global warming is an ideology that rejects science and includes the belief that all opponents reject science and therefore are not worth arguing with. This is why you will not find arguments from global warming advocates, you will just find derisive claims and namecalling.... which you provided an example of.

Note: I am not getting into the debate with you, I am merely pointing out why your namecalling produced, as you put it "zero actual debate".

If you want me to stop calling people deniers, how about they engage with the question: "How do you explain the correlation between surface temperature records and satellite temperature records, both of which show an increase?" Simple, no?

First of all, it is a "hack" paper, only because it disagrees with your conclusion. Secondly "peer-review" is not a barometer of science, it is a barometer of political correctness. (Trust me on this, as I've had papers peer-reviewed in much more esoteric and less politically and government-funding driven areas.) In fact, by controlling the peer review process via government fundeing ,the global warming movement attempts to discredit all science that disagrees with its agenda... and the need to do this is proof positive that science is not the foremost consideration.

As for "Easily rebutted"-- if it is so easily rebutted, please do so. Provide a rebuttal. It doesn't have to be a proof, but an argument would be sufficient. It is NOT rebutted by linking to the opinions of others. A simple rebutted is not that difficult. I can rebut the entirety of the global warming movement with a simple statement: Temperatures have been getting lower over the past decade while CO2 has gone up.

This references two easily verifiable and non-controversial facts, and rebuts the entirety of the hypothesis. so if this paper is so "easily rebutted" do so. A link to a blog post of opinion of someone you claim also links to papers is not a rebuttal. (I stopped following such links when I found that all of them referred to papers that did not make the claim that the forum poster was asserting.)

As to your last question, you haven't provided any such records. IF you would like to link to them directly, then I will have a look. (sincerely.)

The SPPI paper says that land weather station data is broken, temperatures are being reported as much higher than they should be, it's all the urban heat island, etc.

Yet the satellite data strongly corresponds with the land based temperatures and also shows an increase. See http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/surface_satellite_compa... (or read the damn blog post properly)

In addition to this, both urban and rural stations show the same levels of temperature rise: http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/jones_london.gif

Which brings us back to my original question: If we take what you are saying about the land based temperatures at face value, how do you explain a) the extremely strong correlation between the satellite data and the land based data, and b) the extremely strong correlation in the trends between different stations if the data is flawed?

And even so, you are easily defeated because you have provided no evidence supporting your position. You're taking some date, and asserting that it says something without considering the nature of that data and what it is actually measuring.

The thing that has tripped you up is that you think you're referring to science when you're actually referring to propaganda. People have massaged the numbers to support a hypothesis, and you link to it, thinking it is factual. It isn't. (otherwise there is no way the rural and urban areas would show the same warming, unless there was no such thing as a heat island effect, a position I presume you are not taking.)

Thus you have jumped the gun, insulted me, and made erronous arguments while ignoring, multiple times, it being pointed out that you're doing so, because you won't pay close enough attention to notice that you're attacking a person who didn't make the claim you erronously assumed.

A lot of people used to think the world was flat and that the Sun went around the Earth. The atom used to be described as a pudding. The idea that illnesses were caused by creatures that you cannot see was considered ludicrous.

I would be happy to accept any of the above ideas if supported by fact. However I don't feel a need to refer to people who believe such things in a negative manner. The climate deniers you refer to are people too, probably a fair amount of them are intelligent and rational people, just with a different view to you. Name calling doesn't solve anything.

It's impossible to have any sort of reasonable discussion with people who claim to be scientifically informed, but dodge and evade as soon as you ask them simple, straightforward questions like, "where is the scientific evidence which supports your theory?", or "what is your explanation for this obvious hole in the logic of your argument?".

So yes, they are deniers. If they don't like it, they should start arguing properly, or admit that they're wrong. You know, like scientists do.

> It's impossible to have any sort of reasonable discussion with people who claim to be scientifically informed, but dodge and evade as soon as you ask them simple, straightforward questions like, "where is the scientific evidence which supports your theory?", or "what is your explanation for this obvious hole in the logic of your argument?".

Could apply to people from either side. There's theories and evidence to support either direction. It's not a binary it is or it isn't happening thing. It's not a binary we cause it, we don't cause it thing. The problem with the debate is that it becomes a religion to both sides.

However, it does seem that in most issues like this, and with climate change and evolution in particular, the non-science side seems to be particularly stubborn and bloody minded (perhaps because they don't have any evidence, and have to fall back on rhetoric).

Even asking one pretty simple question gets you posts and posts of chatbot-esqe evasion and denial: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1867623

If I remember correctly, much of the pro climate change case is based on core samples, tree rings and satellite recordings of air temperatures. The case against is centred on actual drops in temperature recorded and the absorption of CO2, so there's science for both sides and evidence for both sides.

For your final point and link I'm not sure what you're trying to show me. You seem like a pretty rational guy in our discussion, but come across as fairly irrational (perhaps unstructured would be better) in the other sub-thread. It's clear lzw responded because of your style of argument, I think in his first comment his first point leads to the last and he's pretty much spot on, but in his last point he falls into the very same trap you did.

The point with that link is that even when asked a straightforward question on the one piece of evidence (a non peer reviewed paper) that's been put forward so far, nobody wants to actually answer it. They'd much rather dodge and weave and pull out the same old tired talking points about how things are getting colder, we're overdue for an ice age, blah, blah, blah. Meanwhile, what does that have to do with the originally cited paper?

Not sure what makes me come across as unstructured, either. Perhaps I'm just too used to arguing these points, so I'm "talking" a bit fast?

It shouldn't do, but it also annoys me that people like lzw get voted up for saying basically nothing - it's either personal attacks or the same tired old cliches. Trying to keep things on topic instead gets interpreted as "refusing to answer the questions".

One question! That's all that I'm asking, and it might give some real insight into the opposing viewpoint, or spark some real discussion, but nobody's taken it up so far, which is sad.

All of the global warming data is based on information that has been falsified. It's just as bad (can you show me proof that's not based on this falsified data?).

There is a lot of money in global warming. Al gore is not only invested in the carbon credit industry, but he is trying to get the US government to force businesses to purchase these carbon credits (the profits from these will go directly into his pocket). Nobody on the left seems to care about how unethical this is.

"Nigel's just automating away the drudgery."

No, Nigel doesn't actually want to defend his point. He would rather make fun of the "crackpots" because he arrogantly believes that he is right and everyone else is wrong.

Excuse me?

You think some of it hasn't been falsified? Provide a citation please!

See what I did there? Also brilliant about their position is that it is completely unfalsifiable (if I'm understanding it correctly, it is impossible to disprove, even though the planet is getting colder, because it is based on fantasy models-- you can't disprove a model because it is just a model. And these models having never worked with previous data sets is well known but advocates don't care.)

They are simply fantasies to try and lend "scientific" justification to a political movement.

I'm saying that the models should fit the past data. I think I misunderstood lzw. :)

Those poor, unprofitable energy companies must have trouble fighting all those overly-funded climatologists!

Have you noticed how, when they do so, AGW proponents reject the results out of hand? It is as if you believe politicians would never lie or cheat in order to gain power.

> All of the global warming data is based on information that has been falsified....

Thank you for proving my point so concisely.

I figured everyone would know what I was talking about, but I guess some people don't pay attention to the news as closely as I do.

Also, the profits from purchasing carbon credits do not go directly into Al Gore's pocket. I don't have any idea where anyone would get such a stupid idea.

Not at all - to set people straight on common talking points doesn't require omniscience, it merely requires that those specific talking points have been satisfactorily refuted before, clearly enough so that almost anyone would agree that they're squashed.

If someone on Twitter said "evolution is just a theory", I'd be perfectly happy to see someone respond-spam them with the Merriam-Webster definition of "theory" as it relates to science - that's an unambiguous refutation of the argument, verifiable by pretty much any onlooker as valid (in my experience, when confronted with that response, creationists usually don't acknowledge that they're wrong, but they quickly leave the topic, realizing that they won't score any points there). Similarly, if someone said "Darwin recanted on his deathbed", a simple link to http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2009/03/31/darwins-... (the first Google result for that phrase) would be fully justifiable, regardless of the qualifications of the responder.

As a rule, I think if someone utters/posts/writes something that can be 100% debunked, beyond any reasonable doubt, by typing the phrase into Google and reading the first three results, it's fair to call them out on it, even in an automated way. Omniscience not required.

Then again, I'm more used to arguing evolution than global warming, and evolution is a much more solid theory. I don't know how soundly most of the anti-global warming claims have been refuted, it may very well be the case that this guy is just parroting back talking points rather than properly shooting wrong ideas down. In which case that's Bad(tm).

But as an abstract idea? Go ahead, shoot down the idiot masses, as long as you're damn sure that you're right about what you're putting them down over. A lot of stuff that people say really does deserve a rude smackdown, it's so offensively wrong - this is Twitter we're talking about, after all!

... and they are happy to continue arguing even if the interlocutor isn't even human...

... then who are we to stop them?

How would you educate people that are driven to false conclusions by greedy companies?

First of all this topic is important to address, because it effects us and, above all, our children. Second, this is no topic of "believe" or "taste", it's a topic of marketing campaigns and manipulated statistics versus clear scientific data and common sense. You just need to look at chinas and the U.S. pollution of the environment[1]. Do you really think this has no impact whatsoever?

Every twitter post into the direction of anti-global-warming is just another little push in the wrong direction.

Also: Being tolerant is great! Ignoring the wrong in the name of tolerance is wrong.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CO2-by-country--1990-2025....

In fact, it has been said that doing what some MMGW proponents suggest would keep e.g. India in poverty 100 years longer. People suffering and dying right now! We have to act fast to stop the MMGW movement and save them! See?

Stop using this tactic to shut down discussion.

Shutting down discussion is equal to what the parent suggests (that is to shut up and not to react to those false claims).

So, when you say "you can attach urgency to every claim", you are suggesting that we shuld just wait the next decades and see what happens, or what is your point?

>It's about a problem that should be taken seriously, because it is _global_ and it will affect future generations!

And you do it again.

Look, when you run out here screaming "We have to do something now! No time to discuss it and the other side are spewing nonsense anyway" you have the opposite effect. If time really is of the essence then all efforts should be in (a) proving that we fully understand the nature/cause of the problem, (b) coming up with real solutions/timelines/etc. and (c) addressing all skeptics concerns (over and over, as much as is required).

It's not an easy battle but what MMGW proponents [1] are asking for isn't a simple flip of a switch.

[1] Just for completeness: I'm not purposely taking sides. I've seen both good arguments and scandalous rubbish from both sides. I personally believe that something is happening to the environment and am open to be convinced that we are the culprit. But for me personally, I don't need to be convinced of either of these things. I think green technology is a good thing and should be perused regardless. Even if we aren't causing a green house effect that will melt the world and kill everyone we are poisoning our oceans (and the yummy creatures that live in them), destroying our forests, ecosystems and wild life (some of which I want to be saved for the selfish reason that I want to continue eating them and can't if they don't exist anymore).

I also think we're moving in the right direction and have optimism that humanity will find a way like it always has so far.

But: You can lean back and discuss for the next decades without making a move in a direction. You can discuss and discuss and both sides will bring arguments and you will never find a conclusion. It's a sham.

On the other hand it is quite obvious (without discussions, statistics, yada yada yada) that we are polluting the planet. I don't need figures for that, i just need to look out of my window. Germany, for example, is investing quite a lot into green energy. Just for fun? Or probably with a reason?

But, what bothers me, is the feeling that most people don't want to think about it. It's easier to accept the argument that everything is fine, not care about it and live as if nothing happened without reflecting. I guess many people are (subconsciously) thinking like that. And reading those "false" claims on twitter may be reason enough for many people to just believe it without questioning it. That's why it's good to have some "counterweight". I don't know if i made myself clear enough, but well...

The quintessence is to not look away but do something.

If we can't solve this problem then anything we do to save the environment now is just a band-aid.

>Germany, for example, is investing quite a lot into green energy. Just for fun? Or probably with a reason?

I think most everyone is on board with polluting less (with the obvious exception of people like the Koch brothers), it's just a question of how.

People point out, for example, that creating green technology can be more damaging then the potential savings in using it. I personally don't give this this argument much merit because we tend to get better at things when we do them more, but it just goes to show you that people who care just as much as you do still don't agree on how to tackle the issue.

>It's easier to accept the argument that everything is fine, not care about it and live as if nothing happened without reflecting.

I'm not sure as many people do this as you think. They may not agree with the severity of the issue but everyone understands that we are destroying at least parts of our environment (e.g. poisoning the oceans). That's not controversial.

>The quintessence is to not look away but do something.

We are. Not as fast as some people might like, but people are trying things. The reason is simple: there's money in it.

The problem is, arguments don't lead to insight. If those people could be swayed by rational arguments, they wouldn't be "climate skeptics" in the first place.

So I think the pragmatic approach would be to understand your enemy before you try to engage.

More common is anonymous people on the net who threaten to do so. My point is a bot is predictable, but humans are emotional and irrational. Further, you can't always tell the difference between the snakes and the monsters in an anonymous environment (notice I'm not anonymous). Thus, I'd be more willing to argue with a bot.

It really is bizarre to think of two machines sat arguing with each other.

Many, many people believe what they hear first and what gets shouted loudest. Not liking that fact, and therefore refusing to engage in those tactics, doesn't make it any less true; it simply cedes a large segment of the population to anti-science proponents who are willing to do what it takes to get their message heard.

I don't want science to die, I don't want it to be replaced with some new ideology or religion which can trace its roots to some sciency origin.

Perhaps you can claim that in the short run you've improved things, but in the long run you've drowned out the vital dialog that keeps the process of science alive, you've killed the goose that lays the golden eggs. Meanwhile, someone else figures out how to shout even louder and more convincingly than you and we're back to square one, or the dark ages.

People aren't accepting what you believe to be scientifically provable facts? Argue more persuasively, provide better evidence. Don't just shout louder.

P.S. Yeah, it's a tough and frustrating process. Nobody said it'd be easy. It took millenia for human civilization to pull itself out of the morass of uncritical and superstitious thought. People, many people, suffered and died for that achievement, and the results have been spectacular so far. Giving up on science just because convincing other people of something is a frustrating and difficult process is the height of immaturity.

I don't think this is true. Science is a means of building knowledge via testable predictions. It's not a promotional tool.

It's unrealistic to expect that effective techniques for performing science will be at all effective for promoting science; in fact, we have ample evidence that trying to promote science via reasoned engagement doesn't work very well. Anti-scientific proponents of vaccine-avoidance or evolution-denial continue to gain the mindshare of a significant and powerful segment of the voting population that "better evidence" has been unable to sway.

How many people believed in evolution in 1500? How many people believed the Sun was powered by nuclear fusion in 1900? It's possible to convince people of the value of scientific inquiry and the truth of the results of scientific research, but sometimes it takes a lot more time and effort than anyone would wish.

On the plus side, we have it a lot easier than Galileo did. Our lives aren't in immediate danger merely because we challenge the dogma of powerful institutions.

He put himself into trouble by using the Pope's views in the form of his bot Simplicio, embarrassing the Pope. He was in trouble, but not in physical danger.

The irony is that the Church was open to heliocentrism, but demanded more scientific proof before teaching it.

He was under house arrest for those years at the house of the Archbishop of Siena. It was a fairly nice life in those times. Galileo and the church got along very well, but they had to do something to save face for the Pope. I don't think it's ridiculous.

He's also using some set of content matching algorithms, and may introduce other deeper learning algorithms. That's computer science.

Seems like science to me :P

Since you used the word "Denialists" I already know you deny the scientific method and actually know nothing about the science of this issue. You're just repeating the Global Warming Faith (one of whose tenants is that anything that disagrees with the faith is not science) and attempting to shout down someone accurately pointing out the spam your ideology is resulting in.

However, I did refer to AGW followers as denialists. Not because I follow the "Global Warming Faith" [1], but because AGW followers' tactics of argumentation (or lack thereof) typically follow the Denialist Deck of Cards: http://www.denialism.com/Deckofcards/deck.html

The vast majority of arguments I've heard from AGW proponents can be categorized into one of the following: * No Problem * No Harm * Wait and See (we don't have enough proof, so let's wait and see if something changes - this argument is made quite often by AGW proponents, and is even referenced in the deck of cards) * Stifles Innovation (pushing money into clean energy stifles non-clean energy innovation - this claim was made with regards to California Proposition 23) * Already Highly Regulated (made by auto companies and oil companies) * Jobs (hello prop 23 proponents again) * Red Herring (claims of Neptune's warming is a red herring) * Federal Issue (AGW-funding companies claim that California's tougher emission standards are illegal) * Duh! (AGW proponents saying that they understand the science better than the scientists who are writing the papers, even claiming that the few papers that they have read make them better experts than people who have been studying the issues for decades) * Nit Pick (this is what you are doing, right now) * Muddy the Waters (and again with prop 23) * Poison the Well (this is also what you are doing, right now) * Exploit Others' Ignorance (hello prop 23 again) * Temper Tantrum (this is what targets of the bot do when chatted into a corner) * You're a Ninny (you are doing this) * Big Government (any regulation is big government) * We'll Lose Money (hey, back to prop 23 again)

[1] Actually having examined the evidence at Nasa, from climate scientists, etc., to the best of my ability (I'm not a climate scientist, I am a applied theoretical computer scientist with experience in distributed systems, search, and simulation), the evidence supporting global warming is orders of magnitude more compelling to me than the lack of evidence offered by AGW proponents. Others with differing experience and expertise are welcome to disagree with my judgement of who to believe, as you have. And a healthy dose of skepticism is great for science. But the behavior of AGW proponents is not skepticism, it's denialism.

Regards.

AGW stands for 'Anthropogenic Global Warming' and 'AGW proponents' are those people who actually support the thesis that industrial CO2 emissions are causing catastrophic warming. It looks like you would have a very confused bot on your case if you went on twitter with comments like the above.

People who make arguments that can be refuted in 5 mins are not contributing to "vital dialogue". They're noise-makers.

People who won't change their opinions when confronted with evidence aren't playing the same game you're playing.

I'm reminded of a friend's story back in undergrad. His lab TA told everyone "See that stuffed bear of there? That's Mr. Cuddles. If you have a question, ask Mr. Cuddles first. Then if he can't help you, ask a real TA."

What the AI_bot is dealing with is automatic handling of a large number of pre-canned, pre-debunked arguments, which appropriate reply _is_ "This has been debated before, check it out." Understanding other people's arguments is also part of the scientific process. Furthermore, the author of the bot is reviewing the activity, to ensure that arguments are not being inappropriately applied.

(Also, Leck's chatbot actually avoids repeating itself when talking to any particular person. I don't see anything wrong with repeating the same arguments when responding to different people.)

That most of the people he's replying to are unable or unwilling to engage doesn't detract from what he's doing.

Just like you are unwilling or unable to engage in debate here.

If I disagree, I disagree by writing a counter argument. You may not like it, it may not be persuasive, but I write it.

As to whether this guy is a "scientist" or not, I don't think it is relevant as your movement commonly mischaracterizes people according to their ideological purity.

EDIT: Now I understand why you accused me of blindly downvoting. Projection.

I grew older, learned agriculture and forestry and saw that in mature forests the old trees die and rot, releasing the same amount of CO2 that was captured when they grew.

Now, the same people are telling me that we are responsible for the climate change.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for protecting the rain forests, but thats because of the diversity of life they represent. I'm also for reducing the use of fossile fuel, -because we'll have to sooner or later anyway.

The commonly accepted theory is really a hypothesis with not that much science supporting it. The alternative theory may not have any more science supporting it, either. But notice how the name and the fact that the commonly accepted theory has been commonly accepted so long that it becomes "Fact" biases people's perception of the situation.

I hear people talking about CO2 as if your "carbon footprint" is a relavent issue all the time-- it has become commonly accepted even though, in that case, the hypothesis has been disproven. (CO2's absorbtion of IR is low, and its proportion is low, and thus water vapor is the driver of greenhouse effect. Further, in the past, CO2 has been vastly higher without a runaway greenhouse effect.)

It's a neat idea though.

Apparently he recently worked through a little backlog of apologies, but if you scroll down you'll a longer streak of non-apologies.

Then again, is it still a Turing Test when the human involved is as automatic and predictable as a computer?

Godwin'd.

1. S are in the wrong

2. the debate matters, i.e. if S wins, bad things will happen (e.g. creationism will be taught in schools as science)

3. the chatbot will suck up more time from S than T (e.g. because T people are more likely to recognise it as being a chatbot).

Note that each of these is likely to be true if another circumstance holds -- that S is composed of people on average less intelligent than T.

Finally, what a delicious irony it would be if an evolutionarily programmed chatbot was written that succeeded in wasting the time of creationists!

http://twitter.com/cperciva

Still. Neat idea.

You're probably getting downvoted elsewhere for claiming global warming is a myth, but you're making actual arguments, so those comments aren't in the karma hole. Your comment here is just bile without useful content.

Do you mean they choose Capitalism over Science (i.e. make money on the "green" wave) or ideology over Capitalism?

This is actually a very accurate simulation of attempting to debate with a global warming zealot.