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Chatbot Wears Down Proponents of Anti-Science Nonsense

technologyreview.com

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Re: Chatbot Wears Down Proponents of Anti-Science Nonsense

#71

Post by lzw »

tjmc wrote: post #57
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #8

Let me see if I understand this correctly. 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 assu…

I think he's just rallying against this postmodern delusion that all opinions are equally valid, when the weight of scientific evidence is clearly on his side. And he's not exactly chasing people down, he's just responding to people who are deliberately putting their opinions out there.

Except that the weight of scientific evidence is not on his side. The science clearly points against the global warming hypothesis. It is merely that there is a political/religious/ideological movement to claim that "global warming is settled science" (with no citations, naturally, not that any legitimat scientist would make such a claim anyway.)

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.

Re: Chatbot Wears Down Proponents of Anti-Science Nonsense

#72

Post by phob »

btilly wrote: post #44
olefoo wrote: post #32

> In a way, what Leck has created is a pro-active search engine: it answers twitter users who aren't even aware of their own ignorance. 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,…

No, no, no. #3 is supposed to be "Profit!", and not an explanation of how you profit!

Please, let him be creative.

Re: Chatbot Wears Down Proponents of Anti-Science Nonsense

#73

Post by lzw »

JabavuAdams wrote: post #36
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #8

Let me see if I understand this correctly. 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 assu…

Er, you didn't understand it correctly. 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.

You realize that you're defending a bot which provides random citations base on key phrases found in twitter posts on the claim that "most people's ... nonsense isn't ...skepticism, It's 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.)

Re: Chatbot Wears Down Proponents of Anti-Science Nonsense

#74

Post by anthonyb »

codefisher wrote: post #58
anthonyb wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect that part of the problem is that, at least with climate deniers, is that there's no real meat to their arguments. I know a few, and most of their arguments boil down to hearsay or "denier blog X says so, and who trusts Obama/the UN world government anyway". If they provided a link to something supporting their position I'd probably pass out from shock. At least 95% of the argument with deniers is basically…

"If they provided a link to something supporting their position I'd probably pass out from shock." 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…

Right. So - plenty of downvoting, zero actual debate. And you wonder why people are writing bots to argue with climate deniers.

Respond! Don't just blindly downvote.

Re: Chatbot Wears Down Proponents of Anti-Science Nonsense

#75

Post by lzw »

narrator wrote: post #66
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #8

Let me see if I understand this correctly. 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 assu…

The climate change debate isn't a debate anymore. It's just a yelling match peppered with a lot of ad hominem attacks and the solution is always cap and trade. 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 o…

You're misunderstanding the purpose of the solution by taking it at face value. I think it is important to step back and think about why the global warming movement is being perpetrated. The real "problem" is the lack of a world government and the lack of power of governments over people's lives. Thus "Cap and trade" and all these other proposals that will not work on the face of them are actually solutions because they give governments dictatorial control over industry and people's lives....and they bring us closer to a global government.

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.

Re: Chatbot Wears Down Proponents of Anti-Science Nonsense

#76

Post by lzw »

anthonyb wrote: post #74
codefisher wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If they provided a link to something supporting their position I'd probably pass out from shock." 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…

Right. So - plenty of downvoting, zero actual debate. And you wonder why people are writing bots to argue with climate deniers. Respond! Don't just blindly downvote.

This is the problem you global warming proponents have. You demand a response or citations, yet you never povide them yourselves. You didn't provide an argument worth debating, you just claimed there was no basis for the opposing viewpoint and called them a name.

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".

Re: Chatbot Wears Down Proponents of Anti-Science Nonsense

#77

Post by eitland »

The people who are arguing for the climate change are the same group of people that used to tell me that the (rain)forests are the lungs of the earth.

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.

Re: Chatbot Wears Down Proponents of Anti-Science Nonsense

#78

Post by lzw »

anthonyb wrote: post #65
codefisher wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If they provided a link to something supporting their position I'd probably pass out from shock." 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…

Ok, so overlooking that SPPI are a notorious denier hack site, how do you explain the correlation between surface temperature records and satellite temperature records, both of which show an increase? Also, how do you explain the strong correlation between the temperature trends (ie. increase in temperature) between urban and rural areas? See http://www.skepticalscience.com/surface-temperature-measurem... and http://…

You lost the argument at "notorious denier hack", which is ironic given that you're just re-asserting the same assertions, sans evidence, that every religious adherent to global warming always asserts. By the way, props for having the balls to cite an uninformed blog that, is using exposed-to-be-fraudulent-by-the-climategate-emails data to make your "Argument".

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.

Re: Chatbot Wears Down Proponents of Anti-Science Nonsense

#79

Post by lzw »

glhaynes wrote: post #50
rick888 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I suspect that part of the problem is that, at least with climate deniers, is that there's no real meat to their arguments. I know a few, and most of their arguments boil down to hearsay or "denier blog X says so, and who trusts Obama/the UN world government anyway". If they provided a link to something supporting their position I'd probably pass out from shock." All of the global warming data is based on informatio…

All of the global warming data is based on information that has been falsified. Excuse me?

The brilliant thing about the global warming debate for proponents is that because they are not even aware of the science inovlved, but firmly convinced that they are on the side of "science" they can say whatever they want.

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.)

Re: Chatbot Wears Down Proponents of Anti-Science Nonsense

#80

Post by lzw »

dangrossman wrote: post #10
lhnn wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I knew I'd get downvoted for stating the fact... The problem with that Twitter bot is that which ever side it promoted, it's still stating "facts" without citation (as I have done). That's the problem with Twitter: it's useless as a platform for DISCUSSION. The bot author is a spambot, not a chatbot, and is another reason to stay away from that website.

I glanced over the bot's Twitter stream and it appeared that every response it sent out included a headline/quote and a link. None of the tweets were simply assertions without a link to research or an article to back them up.

Actually all of them are because it is just linking to random papers without any understanding of context-- it can't have understanding because it is a bot.

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

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