I "discovered" the Gell-Mann Effect decades before I ever heard its name. It showed up vividly for me in the NY Times. I won't recount all the instances where reporter showed ignorance, except that one was climate-change related. With zero expertise but with common-sense, I could see the fallacy. I remember asking myself: With all these errors I can see, have I been misled on topics where I lacked knowledge?
On climate change, there are lots and LOTS of articles and YouTubes that are just a click away from journal articles. I often go ahead and click that click; I'm sure many other TFTers do also.
...
The climate cycles. We don't know why.
... Do not trust experts. Remember the Gell-Mann effect.
Thanks Bill O'Reilly.
I don't know what you think I said.
For starters, we think you said "Do not trust
experts. Remember the Gell-Mann effect." Gell-Mann speaks about
journalists, not
experts. However it appears you followed my advice and did Google to learn what the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect is, so let's move on.
We do not know how ice ages start and end. Mankind has not been the driver of any of them. The Sun has 11 yr, 200 yr, 1200 yr, 12-13000 yr cycles. Not to mention Milankovitch.
My understanding is that the Milankovitch cycles are thought to have much more effect than the unexplained solar cycles, but you're right: There's a bewildering number of cycles. Still, the correlation between Milankovitch cycles and climate is rather strong. And importantly, whatever forcing is imposed by orbital, solar or man's activity will be amplified by positive feedbacks, e.g. reduced albedo as ice melts.
One thing that is NOT in dispute is the very strong correlation between climate and CO
2. Perfect prediction is impossible, but it's a leap from that admission to "We don't know."
Whatever the natural forcings due to orbit and solar variation, man's increases in atmospheric CO2 will, in effect, be added to those other forcings. In the near-term "natural" fluctuation will mean the difference between "too hot" and "much too hot" and NOT between "hot" and "cool."
You are almost right about one thing! The Wurm-Wisconsin Glaciation which began about 100,000 years ago is NOT blamed on the wood burning by the tiny Neanderthal population of that time!
But some ancient climate changes have been attributed to mankind. I wrote that you are "almost" right because some researchers think Europe's "Little Ice Age" (centered about 400 years ago) was amplified by the reforestation of North America as farming there declined due to smallpox epidemics!
I don't believe the newspaper reports of what experts say. In my field they're always wrong. How about in yours?
Your point is clear, despite the silliness of the adjective I've underlined. And it's not just "newspapers." I attended a conference where the quality of papers was so low that I almost wanted to withdraw my own paper to avoid guilt by association.
Right-wing climate deniers are insulated from science by the Republican Lie Machine. But most TFTers commenting on climate change are getting their info from scientists or competent journalists.