Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Chatbot Wears Down Proponents of Anti-Science Nonsense

technologyreview.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 230 posts

Re: Chatbot Wears Down Proponents of Anti-Science Nonsense

#81

Post by lzw »

lhnn wrote: post #3

Man-made global warming is a myth.

It is a myth. It is an ideology that rejects science. And the proof that hacker news is full of ignorant college students who choose ideology over science (and capitalism, for that matter) is the fact that any failure to blindly advocate the socialist position is automatically downvoted.

EDIT: I take the downvotes this post is getting as proof that my hypothesis is correct. If my hypothesis were wrong, I would get actual responses or counter arguments attempting to illuminate me. Downvotes are cowardly.

Re: Chatbot Wears Down Proponents of Anti-Science Nonsense

#82

Post by techbio »

statictype wrote: post #49
FlemishBeeCycle wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine it has to do with political correctness, but it seems there is an undercurrent on HN of treating all opinions as equally valid? 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…

You're missing the point. 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.

It is impolite, and therefore unbalanced, to never agree to disagree.

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

Re: Chatbot Wears Down Proponents of Anti-Science Nonsense

#83

Post by lzw »

eitland wrote: post #77

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…

Don't let the term "fossil fuel" confuse you. In the early days of drilling they found fossils in the oil that came up, and this led to the common hypothesis. But people don't really know the mechanism by which oil is created (possibly this is true for coal as well.) The russians have an alternative hypothesis and have some experimental results where wells that were previously depleted were refilled. So called "Fossil fuels" may be a byproduct of processes in the earths crust and may not be finite (though we could still exceed the rate at which they are produced).

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.)

Re: Chatbot Wears Down Proponents of Anti-Science Nonsense

#84

Post by anthonyb »

lzw wrote: post #76
anthonyb wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Point taken about the name calling, but it largely stems from frustration. I don't agree with you about the lack of response or citations. I've provided plenty of data and argument - skepticalscience link to plenty of papers, independent, peer-reviewed, etc. - as well as the reason why deniers are called deniers instead of skeptics. In return, what do I get? One hack paper, non-peer reviewed, easily rebutted, and a whole load of scorn and downvoting.

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?

Re: Chatbot Wears Down Proponents of Anti-Science Nonsense

#85

Post by lzw »

anthonyb wrote: post #28
InclinedPlane wrote: post #2

That's the ticket. Promote "science" by relentlessly repeating the same thing over and over again and refusing to engage in a meaningful argument.

Rubbish. He's providing links to http://www.skepticalscience.com/ , which in turn has links to peer reviewed papers. It's a direct invitation to engage in meaningful argument - the science actually says "X" and here's how they arrived at that conclusion. That most of the people he's replying to are unable or unwilling to engage doesn't detract from what he's doing.

Linking to a blog written by scientifically ignorant proponetns of a religion who make inaccurate in dishonest links to random scientific papers is not making an argument.

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

Re: Chatbot Wears Down Proponents of Anti-Science Nonsense

#86

Post by lzw »

archgoon wrote: post #20
InclinedPlane wrote: post #2

That's the ticket. Promote "science" by relentlessly repeating the same thing over and over again and refusing to engage in a meaningful argument.

If someone comes up to me and informs me that "XYZ is wrong!", and I refer him to several books on the subject, how am I being anti-science? 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…

You are being anti-science because you don't know or understand the science, you're just giving them citations that are completely irrelevant to the question at hand. This has been my experience with global warming advocates- they believe what they believe and they have links to papers that they have never read to justify their faith.

Re: Chatbot Wears Down Proponents of Anti-Science Nonsense

#87

Post by anthonyb »

lzw wrote: post #78
anthonyb wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 eve…

Sans evidence? So, satellite data, weather station data, ice core data, coral reef data, tree ring data, ad infinitum - all independent measurements, all agreeing with each other, is not enough?

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

Re: Chatbot Wears Down Proponents of Anti-Science Nonsense

#88

Post by lzw »

DrJosiah wrote: post #47
InclinedPlane wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you can use science to destroy science, why shouldn't that be so? What's your point?

My point was that he's using psychology, computer science, and climate science to battle global warming denialists. That is actually in support of Science. That was my point, which opposes your seeming claim that his software wasn't using science (where in fact, it does).

Zeolots spamming random paper citations that they've never read to people whose arguments they've never read is not supporting science. It is actually, attempting to stifle science by stifling critical thinking in favor of rote repetition of The Global Warming Faith.

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.

Re: Chatbot Wears Down Proponents of Anti-Science Nonsense

#89

Post by lzw »

anthonyb wrote: post #87
lzw wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 eve…

Sans evidence? So, satellite data, weather station data, ice core data, coral reef data, tree ring data, ad infinitum - all independent measurements, all agreeing with each other, is not enough? Let me put it another way - what evidence would make you change your mind and accept that global warming is happening?

If the planet were actually getting warmer, as CO2 goes up, over the last decade, that would go a long way towards making your theory worth listening to.

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.

Re: Chatbot Wears Down Proponents of Anti-Science Nonsense

#90

Post by anthonyb »

lzw wrote: post #85
anthonyb wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rubbish. He's providing links to http://www.skepticalscience.com/ , which in turn has links to peer reviewed papers. It's a direct invitation to engage in meaningful argument - the science actually says "X" and here's how they arrived at that conclusion. That most of the people he's replying to are unable or unwilling to engage doesn't detract from what he's doing.

Linking to a blog written by scientifically ignorant proponetns of a religion who make inaccurate in dishonest links to random scientific papers is not making an argument. Just like you are unwilling or unable to engage in debate here.

Er, the guy running it is a scientist. If you disagree, or want to engage in debate, by all means start doing so and stop blindly downvoting everything that you disagree with.
Post reply on HN