> To the average person, myself included, the arguments made by both "sides" (ACC exists, ACC does not exist) are equally convincing. That is, both seem logical and well-argued at the superficial level we can understand without training.
Understanding climate change requires high degrees of expertise, the collection of large amounts of data, the use of large mathematical models, and the cooperation of a large number of scientists. A large number of scientists work very hard to track the state of climate change, and their assessment is that "climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities" [0].
> If ACC doesn't exist, the academic lobby will fight for their prestige ang grants)
Please see the list of scientific bodies and their statements on climate change [1]. The idea that a large majority of all scientists with knowledge pertaining to climate science in the world would be corrupted, falsify results, and make false statements over many years to fund further studies seems exceedingly unlikely.
> And so I ask: Who should be trusted, why, and how, given the limited number of hours in the day available to people who aren't directly involved in climatology as their day job?
You should trust what 97% (or more) of all climate scientists agree upon. Arguing that a group of experts of a domain should be trusted is not logically fallacious.
It doesn't have to be knowingly false, though - you think that all of the studies in psychology that wound up being non-reproducible were all submitted by pathological liars?
Keep in mind that I never even mentioned deception, that was something you just set up and knocked down on your own. I have no doubt that most climatologists are doing exactly what they should be doing and aren't Saturday morning cartoon villains,
But if there's a more meta issue involved, such as bad data, I argue that it'll never see the light of day given the political incentives.
(In other words, the politicians are the villains, not the scientists running the data)
> It doesn't have to be knowingly false, though - you think that all of the studies in psychology that wound up being non-reproducible were all submitted by pathological liars?
> But if there's a more meta issue involved, such as bad data, I argue that it'll never see the light of day given the political incentives.
This is why single studies alone should not be the basis for large changes in policy. The current consensus in climate science is based on a large number of studies from different universities, science bodies, countries, using different sources of data, using different methods, and over a period of time. All of these factors makes it likely that the consensus is something which we should believe, and which should guide our policies.
> Keep in mind that I never even mentioned deception, that was something you just set up and knocked down on your own.
You stated that scientists have a profit motive for fudging their numbers, which if they did would be deceptive behavior.
Understanding climate change requires high degrees of expertise, the collection of large amounts of data, the use of large mathematical models, and the cooperation of a large number of scientists. A large number of scientists work very hard to track the state of climate change, and their assessment is that "climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities" [0].
> If ACC doesn't exist, the academic lobby will fight for their prestige ang grants)
Please see the list of scientific bodies and their statements on climate change [1]. The idea that a large majority of all scientists with knowledge pertaining to climate science in the world would be corrupted, falsify results, and make false statements over many years to fund further studies seems exceedingly unlikely.
> And so I ask: Who should be trusted, why, and how, given the limited number of hours in the day available to people who aren't directly involved in climatology as their day job?
You should trust what 97% (or more) of all climate scientists agree upon. Arguing that a group of experts of a domain should be trusted is not logically fallacious.
[0] http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/048...
[1] https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/