Aliens Cause Global Warming – Michael Crichton [pdf] • Hacker News Board

And equating the level of uncertainty in what kind and amount of dust particles produced by a burning city with the uncertainty in rate of abiogensis in the universe is misleading to the point of lying.

And those were only the two most ridiculous things I read in the first 5 pages before giving it up as a waste of time.

Re: Aliens Cause Global Warming – Michael Crichton [pdf]

#7

Post by throwaway5752 » Sat, Feb 08, 2025, 3:30 AM UTC

The Earth is measurably warming in agreement with theory and slightly exceeding estimates, due to atmosphere CO2 levels.

Re: Aliens Cause Global Warming – Michael Crichton [pdf]

#8

Post by defrost » Sat, Feb 08, 2025, 3:39 AM UTC

MostlyStable wrote: post #6

What utter nonsense >Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had The majority of all human knowledge has the consensus of scientists. It is only the very bleeding edge that does not. And equating the level of uncertainty in what kind and amount of dust particles produced by a burning city with the uncertainty in rate of abiogensis in the…

It needs a qualifier regarding backed by data, supported by a truck load of thoroughly peer reviewed papers.

For the record, AGW Climate Change in 2024 has all that, the situation in 2002 (when this lecture in January 2003 was written) had somewhat more wiggle room.

The context for his quoted skeptiscism deserves mention; Carl Sagan's Nuclear Winter was pure pop science .. there were many reasons for most on either side of the aisles to join in in on agreement and no real upside to being a nay sayer.

Re: Aliens Cause Global Warming – Michael Crichton [pdf]

#9

Post by trescenzi » Sat, Feb 08, 2025, 4:16 AM UTC

His rationale for ignoring climate change is a great example of a fallacy, I don’t know if it’s named, where the inaccuracy of extrapolations is used as a reason to fully discount them.

> Let’s think back to people in 1900 in, say, New York. If they worried about people in 2000, what would they worry about? Probably: Where would people get enough horses? And what would they do about all the horseshit? Horse pollution was bad in 1900, think how much worse it would be a century later, with so many more people riding horses?

> Now. You tell me you can predict the world of 2100. Tell me it’s even worth thinking about. Our models just carry the present into the future. They’re bound to be wrong. Everybody who gives a moment’s thought knows it.

He’s not wrong that predictions 100 years out are going to almost always be wrong. What he is wrong about is that fact is a reason to do nothing. It’s become a very common assertion that clearly since extrapolations are wrong it means we actively should do nothing.

We’re not not drowning in horse shit because extrapolations done in 1900 were wrong. We’re not drowning in horse shit because someone invented another tool which caused the extrapolation to be wrong.

Re: Aliens Cause Global Warming – Michael Crichton [pdf]

#10

Post by MostlyStable » Sat, Feb 08, 2025, 4:23 AM UTC

defrost wrote: post #8

MostlyStable wrote: post #6

What utter nonsense >Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had The majority of all human knowledge has the consensus of scientists. It is only the very bleeding edge that does not. And equating the level of uncertainty in what kind and amount of dust particles produced by a burning city with the uncertainty in rate of abiogensis in the…

It needs a qualifier regarding backed by data, supported by a truck load of thoroughly peer reviewed papers. For the record, AGW Climate Change in 2024 has all that, the situation in 2002 (when this lecture in January 2003 was written) had somewhat more wiggle room. The context for his quoted skeptiscism deserves mention; Carl Sagan's Nuclear Winter was pure pop science .. there were many reasons for most on either s…

There will always be bad pop science on every topic. The correct response is to ignore it, or, if you must, criticize the specific work and the specific ways in which it is bad. He is taking the existence of such bad pop science and smearing an entire field as being completely unscientific. Which is the entire problem that I saw with the 5 pages I read. He took a grain of truth and stretched it beyond all credibility and reason to ridiculous conclusions.

Much like his quote about scientific consensus. Yes, the media often sells a lie about fake consensus that doesn't actually exist, and to whatever meager extent it is, isn't supported by much evidence, but to take that (twisted, warped, and removed from context) fact and to then simply claim that one should never trust anything which has a claimed scientific consensus is idiocy.

One should absolutely be skeptical when you get a combination of factors:

1) The _only_ arguments are appeals to consensus 2) The topic has strong political valence

but those are very specific circumstances in which to be skeptical.