So where do you think the threshold of flat-earthdom is?
Short version first, maybe some people who won't read the whole post, will at least read the short version.
Believing that the earth is flat is totally unreasonable. It either requires staggering ignorance, or irrationality to believe the earth is flat. The belief that either the earth is not warming in an unusual way, or that if it is it isn't caused by, or isn't primarily caused by human action, probably isn't correct, but it doesn't require either staggering ignorance, or a significant level or irrationality.
Long version -
I might give some small weight to the percentage of people who believe an idea correct or incorrect. If 99.9% of people reject an idea it might be a sign that its problematic. I might also give some weight to how long an idea has been discredited. If new evidence discredits and idea its probably not quite as irrational to doubt the evidence as it is to doubt evidence and confirmations accumulated over decades or centuries. I might give a bit of weight to the complexity of the issue and the evidence. In the end though the main criteria is how solid the facts and evidence are.
Anthropogenic global warming, falls short of "flat earthdom" by all of these standards.
The evidence has really only been reasonable solid for a few years. As recently as when I first posted on the issue on SI the evidence was more mixed. Part of the change is just accumulating more evidence on the global warming side of the balance. Part of it is that some of the counter evidence has been shown to be faulty or questionable. So global warming fails to achieve "flat-earthdom" on the time criteria.
The percentage of people who disagree with global warming is probably significant even though it is also probably a minority. I doubt very much it would be in the single digits, it could be as high as a third or even higher. The percentage of scientists in general, or scientists in a relevant field who disagree that anthropogenic global warming is an established fact is a minority, probably a small minority, but almost certainly not a fraction of one percent. Depending on how they define "established fact" it might even be in the low double digits. So global warming falls short of "flat earthdom" in terms of how many people believe in it and how many people with relevant expertise believe in it. The idea that the earth is flat is only believed by an insignificant minority of people, and a still smaller percentage of educated people. You would have to look long and hard to find any scientist in any field who believed it. It gets no support at all. I imagine it likely that many of the members of the Flat Earth Society signed up as a lark and don't really believe it.
Out understanding of climate is imperfect, and climate is a very complex subject. The temperature record is imperfect and even to the extent it can be relied on requires complex statistical evaluation to determine how likely changes in temperature over a period of years or decades are part of a trend or just normal fluctuations over time. Looking at the evidence it seems reasonable to conclude that recent changes have been up, and up by more than is likely from random fluctuations. Also there has been some disputed and uncertain evidence of warming on other planets which would seem to indicate an increase in solar output. I think the evidence on the anthropogenic global warming side, is far more solid at this point. If it was a civil suit the anthropogenic global warming side would win hands down IMO. OTOH I might not vote to "convict" homo sapiens of the "crime" of global warming if I was on a jury for a criminal trial on the issue. I think its clear that global warming falls short of "flat-earthdom" in terms of having simple proof that the idea is wrong, and I also think it falls short (if not as far or certainly short) of that charge on the certainty of the evidence, which I consider the most important criteria.
Tim |
