Occam’s razor suggests that the more likely explanation for some phenomenon is the explanation which requires the fewest number of assumptions or required assertions. Even though in science the correct answer is sometimes the more complex one, rationally speaking, the fewer amount of assumptions that we have to make in order to get a theory to work, the better.
For example, think of how many assumptions you have to make to consider the September 11th attacks a government conspiracy. So many claims about time, space, engineering, politics, prior knowledge, flight patterns, etc., must be made to even start bridging the gap. On the other hand, the simpler explanation that requires less assumptions (and indeed has more evidence) is that a group of terrorists hijacked some planes and flew them into the buildings.
By association, Occam’s razor regularly dismantles most conspiracy theories without much effort. Of course, any of the conspiracies could be true, but without evidence the numerous assumptions that need to be made push these theories into irrational confines.
The infographic below takes a similar approach. On the side that accepts anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming, it takes many more assumptions to make the idea that the majority of the world’s climate scientists are in collusion to make a worldwide hoax from which they see no benefit work than it does to think that oil companies are protecting their bottom line. We know that there are huge oil lobbies, oil companies that have scientists in their pockets, and that large corporations are trying to purposefully undermine the science of climate.
Therefore, which makes more sense?
[Via Brooke Jarvis on Twitter]
Science-Based Life 
I like this quite a bit, but it’s a bit convuluted for my liking. Perhaps a more simpler question to ask a climate change conspiracy theorist is … give me an example where a virtual consensus on a scientific issue (in the modern scientific era – last 50 years or so) was proven to be wrong?
Chances are, the same people who deny climate change are going to be ignorant of coming up with any example (which I doubt there is).
If you doubt there is one, then either you are ignorant exactly of the thing you’re saying those people are ignorant of, or there really isn’t such an example and then you can’t blame anyone for being ignorant of coming up it.
Anyway, where isn’t a scientific consensus on the issue. But I’m sure if you point you to peer reviwed publications which show otherwise you’re going to said they were paid oil companies, right? Who’s the conspiracy theorist then?
Typos:
Anyway, there isn’t a scientific consensus on the issue. But I’m sure if I point you to peer reviwed publications which show otherwise you’re going to said they were paid by oil companies, right? Who’s the conspiracy theorist then?
You can have a peer reviewed paper that disagrees with the consensus, of
course, but a few papers do not make a consensus. If you research the views of any authority on the issue, there is overwhelming support for global warming. It has been since the 1970’s.
Kyle why can’t I reply to your comment?
Anyway, fortunately, science isn’t about consensus. A big consensus can be wrong because more people believing something doesn’t make it more likely to be true. That’s a known fallacy. So that there is a consensus isn’t an argument for or against anything.
I agree that consensus does not equal fact. This just happens to be a case where multiple lines of evidence (pollen analysis, ice cores, temperature data, migratory patterns, etc.) all converge on the same conclusion that AGW is real, happening, and human caused. The consensus merely backs up this preponderance and does not take its place. The same can be said for evolution.
I have tried not to commit a fallacy here, but arguing against a claim’s truth simply because a few people disagree is also fallacious. We have to look at the evidence, which is clear.
I still can’t reply to your comments.
So how much of the evidence have you examined by yourself? Give me details, I’m very interested.
I see where you are going with that question, and I don’t think that it matters. By analogy, can we only say that there are 8 planets if we have seen each one of them for ourselves? We can’t trust the scientists who spend their lives answering those questions and presenting the evidence to us? The same is true for climate science. I don’t have to personally examine a tree ring to understand where the evidence is pointing. Unless you have a plan to get everyone who believes in any scientific idea to examine the centuries worth of evidence themselves for every finding, I find that argument untenable.
Scientific Consensus wrong? (to chrislindsay9 March 9, 2012 at 7:27 pm)
Has happened a lot …. in medicine particularly:
The latest and most interesting was perhaps the discovery of Helicobacter pylori as the primary cause of stomach ulcers: By the way, all criticisms of Wikipedia aside, this time-line from there is fascinating …. I did not realize people had been battling over this for centuries! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_peptic_ulcer_disease_and_Helicobacter_pylori
extract
1983 January: Two letters authored by Warren and Marshall, respectively, are sent to The Lancet describing their results.[38]
February: Gastroenterological Society of Australia rejects Marshall’s abstract to present his research at their yearly conference. They deem it in the bottom 10% of papers submitted. The same abstract is accepted for presentation at a Campylobacter workshop in Brussels.[38]
Thalidomide
Just sayin’
I agree that conspiracy theories are almost always the least likeliest explanation. But ironically I think it is simpler than all that: a conspiracy theory is almost always constructed to be as hard to test as possible, ideally not being subject to reality at all. Because what would be the idea (thinks the conspirationist) if anyone can immediately tell it is bogus by conflicting with pesky facts.
Hence a September 11th conspiracy is revolving around many and hidden ‘facts’. Plus the inserted ad hoc circumstances that takes care of the contradictions which is certain to pup up as you incessantly glue facts and ‘facts’ together to form the desired pattern.
The mass of assumptions is hence a symptom of the underlying problem, not a cause of it. The basic problem is that conspiracy theory is belief, not fact, and the primary problem is that non-testability most often makes it a no-go as explanation.
Are you kidding with this comparison?
Half a billion dollars to Solyndra alone to produce solar panels (the company went belly up), Al Gore was worth about $2M when he left the white house, he’s now on the brink of being the first green billionaire, the chevy volt costing $250K per car, hundreds of billions more dollars being doled out to anybody and everybody swearing allegiance to the global warming hoax and your graph shows a money interest only on the big oil side of the equation?
“Regional” and “community” environmental groups? You mean the same groups receiving millions and millions of dollars in funding from the companies receiving billions and billions of dollars in government funding? Those groups?
Oh, and the two scientists (in your graphic) being bribed? How to explain the more than 31,000 scientists opposing the global warming “science” (http://www.petitionproject.org/)? That’s a lot of bribing, isn’t it? Maybe if they could get a few million dollars in government grants they’ll flip their allegiance, eh?
I do not think your points apply to this discussion. The president tries to invest in new energy technology and that is bribing? I suppose that the subsidies that go to farmers is part of the Agriculture Hoaxers as well? Al Gore makes money, and that is bribing? (You should note that hundreds of politicians in the US are millionaires or above). A car with new, unrefined technology costs more money, and that is a conspiracy? (So then is a gas-powered Ferrari part of the fossil fuel conspiracy?) You bring up a few points but the fact is that the fossil fuel industry makes up the majority of the energy infrastructure in America. Does that mean they have more money to throw around? Absolutely. You seem to think that climate scientists are getting rich off of presenting objective evidence to show that AGW is happening. This is patently false.
You seem to ignore the fact that the same comparison could be made about the fossil fuel industry and their massive lobbying groups. Also, it does not take much searching to find out that your funding argument is factually incorrect:
While 31,000 scientists opposing AGW is supposed to sound impressive, the fact is that these deniers only represent 0.24% of the scientists. You think 31,000 is a lot, but that is out of 12,944,000 scientists. If we look at the number of climatologists that agree with AGW, the number is 99%. This wide consensus on the issue shows just how inconsequential the 31,000 figure actually is. Evolution deniers tried the same tactics when they released a list of scientists who disagreed with evolution that was supposed to be impressive. The National Center for Science Education released a list of only scientists named Steve who agreed with evolution and it was a far bigger list. Let’s not play around with a false equivalence here. The number of deniers on the AGW is dwarfed by the scientific consensus that it is happening and human-caused.
> ? How to explain the more than 31,000 scientists opposing the global warming “science”
First of all, those are 31,000 *people*, who are supposedly scientists…not even necessarily climate science or a related field. I’m sure many of them are High School Science Teachers.
As someone else noted, that’s a drop in the bucket.
Secondly, that petition **DOES NOT** oppose “global warming science”.
It’s a petition against the KYOTO PROTOCOL, and what it is saying is that the signers don’t believe that Global Warming will be a “catastrophic” problem, or at least that the Kyoto Protocol will be worse than any problem from AGW.
So here we have a typical climate change conspiracy post…full of lies/ignorance and a link to a source which does not say what they claim it does.
Listen, I agree with the argument of the argument (siding with the scientists), but Occam’s Razor is NOT proof! It doesn’t tell you anything. Proof is found in evidence. Occam’s Razor is simply a suggestion to go with the solution that requires the fewest assumptions when there is no other evidence available to base your claims off of. Using it in this context undermines the whole argument.
I agree. Notice that I did not say anything about it being proof. All I said was that it did not favor the hoax theory. It is not evidence, merely another thing to think about when judging a claim’s validity.
Reblogged this on The Caudal Lure.
Well said mate :)
There are a few false premises in the “Occam’s Razor” flow chart, which unfortunately make it look a bit more of a marketing exercise than a statement of logical fact:
1. Operations like Greenpeace and WWF don’t spend their meager reserves on funding climate scientists. They largely spend it on advertising campaigns and activities, utilizing current and forecast ‘crises’ to attract further donations. (ie http://www.wwf.org.uk/adoption/polarbear/ … Note Well ; “Your support will also help fund other essential WWF conservation work around the world.”)
2. And are their funds (Greenpeace and WWF) meagre, anyway?
Amsterdam-based Greenpeace is estimated to be a $360 million/year global empire. WWF turned over about $250 million in 2012. (Ironically enough WWF and Greenpeace were primarily funded by ‘big oil’ in past decades!) http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2012/04/11/the-wwfs-vast-pool-of-oil-money/
3. And so who really does fund the climate scientists?
• Government (taxes!): The US Government has spent $70 billion on climate since 2008, much of it in research. The EU will spend 960 billion euros in the next 7 years. http://www.thegwpf.org/brussels-control-e250-billion-green-lobby/
• And …amazingly enough…. Big oil:
– BP is funding research into “ways of tackling the world’s climate problem” at Princeton University to the tune of $2 million per year for 5 years, (previously ran for 10 years at $1.5 million per year. http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S22/40/40G69/index.xml?section=topstories
– BP Sending $500 million on climate friendly energy research lab at Berkely http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2007/02/01_ebi.shtml
– ExxonMobil has donated $100 million to Stanford University to “find ways to meet growing energy needs without worsening global warming”. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/1121-04.htm
4. Scientists don’t have to ‘conspire’ re the direction of their research nor the wording of the results. They (in academic and government employ) can only do research for which they are funded, and funding allocation necessarily follows government policy of the time. Ongoing funding requires producing ‘useful and relevant’ research and publications.
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