# Climate Change Deniers; What more proof do you need? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 12, 2023, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climate-change-deniers-what-more-proof-do-you-need/986958 "2023-07-12T20:29:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 114
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2023, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climate-change-deniers-what-more-proof-do-you-need/986958/114 "2023-07-19T02:42:02Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > The state of science in general today is not very good. The number of retractions, failures to replicate, outright fraud and other issues are grtting higher. It’s worst in the most politicized issues, and things like journal acceptance bias are a problem. All of this is carefully vague blather designed to foster an emotional impression of distrust in the findings of mainstream climate science, rather than to seriously analyze any of its results or the overall reliability of the field. If we look at any of your citeless claims more closely, we see how dubious they are. Treating an increase in retraction rates, for example, as an unambiguous indicator of declining scientific quality is unjustified, as [this article points out:](https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/two-cheers-for-the-retraction-boom) > [@](#): > > The work of both concerned scientists and agencies like the ORI have led some observers to argue that the rising rates of retractions are more a sign of improvements in the scientific community’s vigilance than of increasing corruption and vice. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > scientists who may have […] either might not […] I assume that […] your career can be […] it’s hard not to conclude that […] Hard to quantify […] I assume that […] Sam, the amount of stuff you’re pulling out of your ass here would give any proctologist nightmares. Nobody is actually advocating for blind unquestioning adherence to every officially published scientific result, or discouraging any serious and informed questioning of research findings. But it’s obvious that you’re just deliberately working on manufacturing doubt to flatter the suspicions of the ignorant about climate science as a field, rather than exposing any real-life flaws in its actual scientific practice. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > The day we get to the point where questioning ‘science’ is not allowed, we’re finished. Tolerating cranks and misinformation is the price we pay for open debate Nobody is suggesting that cranks and misinformation, or crank-and-misinformation enablers like yourself, should be legally prohibited from disseminating stupid anti-science shit. But treating crankery and misinformation and other stupid anti-science shit with respect or deference is not required or desirable. > [@BeepKillBeep](#): > > But please, but all means, cite one of the reports and question a problem you have with any of it. I would LOVE to see this. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Okay, I’m out. What a surprise; Sam’s willing to insinuate all sorts of distrust and suspicion about climate science as a research field in general, based on vague unsupported “stands to reason” arguments, but as soon as somebody asks him to support his chatter with some specific evidence of scientific misconduct, he’s “out”. Naturally, nobody here is claiming that every published climate science finding is true or that no climate scientist has ever published results tainted by sloppiness or fraud. Climate science is just as subject to human fallibility and immorality as any other area of science. But none of that validates Sam’s rather slimy attempts to argue, based on his personal wish-fulfilling distrust of “liberal causes” rather than on any actual evidence, that climate science as a discipline is somehow exceptionally untrustworthy due to alleged ideological bias. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climate-change-deniers-what-more-proof-do-you-need/986958)._