Online activists are silencing us, scientists say

Nowadays, the evidence is stacking up that there are metabolic, viral, and neurological factors involved, and while all of these can effect alertness, they are not ever dealt with via willpower.

The patients who have been royally insulted are the ones likely reacting this way. Whether or not the physician or scientist on the receiving end is deserving of the ridicule is case specific.

As an example, I'll run through a sample "scientifically pragmatic" argument against the death penalty: The death penalty is a terrible idea because it fails a cost benefit analysis. The benefit is a deterence to commit certain types crime, and a cost savings compared to life imprisonment. These are measurably small (research has shown that severity of a penalty has a nonlinear relationship with deterrent effect). The cost is the violation of a moral imperative not to kill. A society with the death penalty has made a conscious decision to compromise a moral imperative. This weakens the authority of moral imperatives, particularly the one against killing. The purpose of such moral imperatives is to promote a more civil, less violent society, because such societies enjoy an evolutionary advantage, hence their evolution in the first place.

How the argument proceeds from this point depends on core axioms - whether one values happiness or survival more, for instance. But the point is that it's possible to logically break down what appear to be moral questions into purely pragmatic ones, in service of deeper axioms.

The problem with this isn't that it's ineffective - it's that it's complicated, error prone, and relies heavily on a correct accounting of second-order effects and beyond. Science is hard - you need research and facts. Moral judgement is easy - you just say what pops into your head. As such, people mistrust the very idea that morals could be calculable, because it removes their agency. If someone has a strong, irrational feeling that Billy Murderer has it coming and should fry for what he did to those kids, my above argument (fleshed out properly to appeal to their core values, provided that's possible) will not convince them that it's a bad idea in the long run, no matter how scientific or testable it is. So they say things like "science has nothing to say". In fact, it does - we just don't want to listen.

I think you've just proven my real point I was making.

>Why haven't the climate change researchers figured out what you have?

What happens when your research provides evidence or an argument that doesnt fit the story of climate change? You get labelled a climate denier and nobody will look at your data 'because it isnt a good use of their time' and the 'consensus' is that you are wrong. Then you never get funding again.

>Do they have rebuttals to these claims? If so, can you please link those rebuttals in the name of transparency?

I'm providing graphs and explaining the graphs. It's a fact that the world was 14celcius warmer in the eocene and had 10x the CO2. There's nothing to rebuttal unless you're going to go after my sources. I picked this on purpose because there is no rebuttal. Anyone reasonable should be able to look at my comments and reasonably look at the data.

>P.S. You are being downvoted for being wildly off topic as well as a bit inflammatory.

If you read my post again. I literally say it.

It's the toxic echo chambers which disallow an alternative viewpoint. I'm right on topic about explaining and showing the echo chamber. Climate change is also not the topic.

I challenge you dwaltrip to go into your usual circles and try to argue an alternative option. Devils advocate if you were; just dont tell them you're doing it.

Pick whatever subject you like and see how people react to you.