Am I still allowed to question climate change?

[convert]

90 pages! 1797 posts! Holy Moly! (Correction 91/1801.)

 

I was about to start a new thread on this subject and didn't need to search for similar. This was most recent in General discussions.

 

I'm sympathetic to the scientific method. I believe that only those who have some scientific background can really comment on scientific matters. But ... s**t there's dumb f**ks out there who'd argue black was white, who don't fight fair, who'd throw sand in the face of an opponent who was winning.

 

Forget logic! This argument is emotional. It's about the future of our oasis of life, the earth in a cold desolate inhospitable universe.

 

At what point do we push the emergency button?

 

Say you're in the house and you smell smoke. Do you call 999 and get out? Or do you think "I haven't seen fire, I need greater proof"?

 

Hmmm haven't worked out how I'll do more, but here's what prompted me to look in on SF to discuss global warming ...

 

I/we have got to get emotional about our planet, our future, our children's future. Or are we prepared to continue to experiment with thermal runaway?

 

On the other hand ... I'm in my 50's ... why should I care? Global warming's not going to kill me!

 

Ah, another little rant disappearing into the ether ... another beer please missus. Is America's Next Top Model over yet?

 

So what you're saying is let's ignore the facts and act on an appeal to emotion.

 

An Appeal to Emotion is a fallacy with the following structure:

 

 

Favorable emotions are associated with X.

Therefore, X is true.

This fallacy is committed when someone manipulates peoples' emotions in order to get them to accept a claim as being true. More formally, this sort of "reasoning" involves the substitution of various means of producing strong emotions in place of evidence for a claim. If the favorable emotions associated with X influence the person to accept X as true because they "feel good about X," then he has fallen prey to the fallacy.

 

This sort of "reasoning" is very common in politics and it serves as the basis for a large portion of modern advertising. Most political speeches are aimed at generating feelings in people so that these feelings will get them to vote or act a certain way. in the case of advertising, the commercials are aimed at evoking emotions that will influence people to buy certain products. In most cases, such speeches and commercials are notoriously free of real evidence.

 

This sort of "reasoning" is quite evidently fallacious. It is fallacious because using various tactics to incite emotions in people does not serve as evidence for a claim. For example, if a person were able to inspire in a person an incredible hatred of the claim that 1+1 = 2 and then inspired the person to love the claim that 1+1 = 3, it would hardly follow that the claim that 1+1 = 3 would be adequately supported.

 

It should be noted that in many cases it is not particularly obvious that the person committing the fallacy is attempting to support a claim. In many cases, the user of the fallacy will appear to be attempting to move people to take an action, such as buying a product or fighting in a war. However, it is possible to determine what sort of claim the person is actually attempting to support. In such cases one needs to ask "what sort of claim is this person attempting to get people to accept and act on?" Determining this claim (or claims) might take some work. However, in many cases it will be quite evident. For example, if a political leader is attempting to convince her followers to participate in certain acts of violence by the use of a hate speech, then her claim would be "you should participate in these acts of violence." In this case, the "evidence" would be the hatred evoked in the followers. This hatred would serve to make them favorable inclined towards the claim that they should engage in the acts of violence. As another example, a beer commercial might show happy, scantily clad men and women prancing about a beach, guzzling beer. In this case the claim would be "you should buy this beer." The "evidence" would be the excitement evoked by seeing the beautiful people guzzling the beer.

 

This fallacy is actually an extremely effective persuasive device. As many people have argued, peoples' emotions often carry much more force than their reason. Logical argumentation is often difficult and time consuming and it rarely has the power to spurn people to action. It is the power of this fallacy that explains its great popularity and wide usage. However, it is still a fallacy.

 

In all fairness it must be noted that the use of tactics to inspire emotions is an important skill. Without an appeal to peoples' emotions, it is often difficult to get them to take action or to perform at their best. For example, no good coach presents her team with syllogisms before the big game. Instead she inspires them with emotional terms and attempts to "fire" them up. There is nothing inherently wrong with this. However, it is not any acceptable form of argumentation. As long as one is able to clearly distinguish between what inspires emotions and what justifies a claim, one is unlikely to fall prey to this fallacy.

 

As a final point, in many cases it will be difficult to distinguish an Appeal to Emotion from some other fallacies and in many cases multiple fallacies may be committed. For example, many Ad Hominems will be very similar to Appeals to Emotion and, in some cases, both fallacies will be committed. As an example, a leader might attempt to invoke hatred of a person to inspire his followers to accept that they should reject her claims. The same attack could function as an Appeal to Emotion and a Personal Attack. In the first case, the attack would be aimed at making the followers feel very favorable about rejecting her claims. In the second case, the attack would be aimed at making the followers reject the person's claims because of some perceived (or imagined) defect in her character.

 

 

Source for quote http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-emotion.html

[convert]

The problem is the majority of ***** like you can't predict the weather forecast let alone climate change years removed from now and like we've recently just seen Wildcat for example has no scientific credentials whatsoever.

 

So where do you live? In a mudhut?

 

Tell us a little bit about your lifestyle?

 

In fairness to Wildcat it's not uncommon for 'True believers' to have no scientific credentials; after all the chair of the IPCC is a railway engineer who writes 'steamy' novels.

[truman]

Say you're in the house and you smell smoke. Do you call 999 and get out? Or do you think "I haven't seen fire, I need greater proof"?

 

 

That's a good analogy 'cos in our office building pushing the fire alarm when there isn't one will result in a financial penalty....

[convert]

That's a good analogy 'cos in our office building pushing the fire alarm when there isn't one will result in a financial penalty....

 

Exactly, even IF there is a fire we need to know what kind of fire before we start to spray water on it, or foam, or even CO2

 

Taking the wrong action is likely to make the situation worse.

[Streamline]

In fairness to Wildcat it's not uncommon for 'True believers' to have no scientific credentials; after all the chair of the IPCC is a railway engineer who writes 'steamy' novels.

 

 

Fair point but if you study him closely you'll soon realise he stays completely on "media message" and never once strays from that path.

 

Kind of odd for someone with apparently a degree in philosophy don’t you think?

 

Never once have I noticed him challenge his own believes and question himself.

[BritPat]

A degree in Philosophy, which included the Philosophy of Science.

 

Philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds

 

Attributed to Richard Feynman (Theoretical Physicist and Nobel Laureate)

[sweetsexy]

There is an evidence in global warming and its up to us on how we handle it and how to counter attack the feeling of crisis especially financially and more to it, is the environment we have right now

[Streamline]

There is an evidence in global warming and its up to us on how we handle it and how to counter attack the feeling of crisis especially financially and more to it, is the environment we have right now

 

Ever thought of praying?

[spinac]

So what you're saying is let's ignore the facts and act on an appeal to emotion.

 

No, I'm saying we shouldn't ignore emotion. Concentrating on facts to the exclusion of emotion simply turns people off. They'd rather discuss conspiracy theories than face facts.

 

But hey ho, on the other hand why worry at all? Britain will be one of the last countries to be seriously affected. We're not being flooded, affected by wildfires or in danger of being submerged under the sea. In fact I can ignore the issue as easily as the next person ...

[inkheart]

But hey ho, on the other hand why worry at all? Britain will be one of the last countries to be seriously affected. We're not being flooded, affected by wildfires or in danger of being submerged under the sea. In fact I can ignore the issue as easily as the next person ...

 

Lucky you lol. But won't you miss us