Thursday, January 15, 2015

Disappointing

I've been reading Ars Technica for years. The bulk of what they do: I find awesome.

A recent article used the phrase "Climate Denial" in its title. To me, in terms of the scientific method, there is no such thing as "denial", but simply "critical" or "questioning" or "not convinced". "Skeptical", if you will. All of these labels are fine, as they acknowledge that the hypothesis in question (AGW) is being tested. But "denial" has been used to shut down conversation, as if critical examination is no longer allowed.

So I posted my thoughts, in the forum attached to that article, basically repeating the above.

Ars Technica appears to have disliked my points about questioning. and that falsifiability is no longer applicable to AGW. So they closed my forum post, marking it as "trolling".

The ridiculous thing is that somebody even replied to my post, pointing out "scientific consensus" on Wikipedia, yet that article specifically discusses that certain theories can never be proven. Only disproven (ref: falsifiability, above). So when you find a hypothesis in this pattern... the approach is to disprove.

But nope. Ars Technica shut me down.

I will still read you, Ars. I like your content. But when you shut down discussion? And call it trolling, despite some kind of rational basis, and an attempt at civil discussion?

No. That is wrong, and I have lost respect for what you do.

3 comments:

geir said...

Is there a link?

Greg said...

I'm disappointed with Ars right now, so no... I don't want to link to their site :-/

Unknown said...

I've also noticed that troubling trend at Ars. Climate change is an area I admittedly have little knowledge of, and ordinarily I'd enjoy coverage from a site like Ars since I'd expect high quality content from them. But when I see a coordinated effort from the staff to shut down discussion, I know they've jumped the shark.