Thank you very much for sharing this! I do not have the technical know-how to offer informed commentary, but it's a topic I've been very interested in.
If I might ask a couple of clarifying questions:
1) I've read some stuff talking about the political influences on the scientific publications about climate science. I know that you are excellent about noticing these kinds of distortions to the scientific process, so I wonder if you might share a bit about how you've approached deciding which studies to take seriously and which to treat more suspiciously?
2) Somewhat linked to the above, I've also read assertions that much of the data on paleoclimatology is too small and/or specific to generalize from. Often this assertion is mashed up with political claims as with 1) (for example, the idea that much of the "global" temperature data cited by climate scientists has been cherry picked to support a dire view of what's happening). Further complicating things, these claims are usually made by folks of a contrarian political bent (like Eric S. Raymond and Curtis Yarvin), which makes it even harder to decide if they are making accurate, but unpopular-in-the-mainstream claims, or if they just have their own political axes to grind. All of which is a quite long set up for an actual question: as a non-specialist who well recognizes many of the distorting forces in mainstream modern science, what have you looked for to take studies seriously and trust that they are as generalizable as they claim to be?
Thanks very much again for putting this forward clearly and concisely, Jeff
no subject
If I might ask a couple of clarifying questions:
1) I've read some stuff talking about the political influences on the scientific publications about climate science. I know that you are excellent about noticing these kinds of distortions to the scientific process, so I wonder if you might share a bit about how you've approached deciding which studies to take seriously and which to treat more suspiciously?
2) Somewhat linked to the above, I've also read assertions that much of the data on paleoclimatology is too small and/or specific to generalize from. Often this assertion is mashed up with political claims as with 1) (for example, the idea that much of the "global" temperature data cited by climate scientists has been cherry picked to support a dire view of what's happening). Further complicating things, these claims are usually made by folks of a contrarian political bent (like Eric S. Raymond and Curtis Yarvin), which makes it even harder to decide if they are making accurate, but unpopular-in-the-mainstream claims, or if they just have their own political axes to grind. All of which is a quite long set up for an actual question: as a non-specialist who well recognizes many of the distorting forces in mainstream modern science, what have you looked for to take studies seriously and trust that they are as generalizable as they claim to be?
Thanks very much again for putting this forward clearly and concisely,
Jeff