Why I Believe in Climate Change
I’m not a techie. So if I need a new laptop, I ask ten of my techie friends for recommendations. If nine say buy laptop X, and one says buy laptop Y, there are three ways I can deal with this information:
1. I can conclude that they’re all wrong. This may in fact be true. It’s definitely happened before. Sometimes entire fields, like phrenology, are proven wrong. But since I’m not a techie, I have no reasonable grounds for concluding this.
2. I can conclude that the one guy who said go for laptop Y is right. He might be right. Once again, this has definitely happened before. Minority voices within fields are sometimes vindicated and proven right. But since I’m no techie, once again, I have no reasonable grounds for concluding this. Buying into the proclamations of a lone wolf is no better than a leap of faith when you know next to nothing about the subject matter.
3. I can conclude that laptop X is the one I should buy. Does this guarantee that it’s actually the best? Of course not. Majorities are wrong with some regularity. But when you’re dealing with something as complicated as climatology, which is far more complicated than laptop computers, let’s face it, most of us don’t know shit. As such, the most reasonable thing to do, though by no means a foolproof solution, is to go with what the majority of people who seem to know what they’re talking about believe to be true.
I happen to know a few climatologists. From the conversations I’ve had with them, it’s become abundantly clear to me that 99% of the people who weigh in on the subject in Social Media Land, myself included, don’t have a clue what they’re talking about. As Aaron Haspel puts it in Everything (2015): “Most people, on most matters, are not, in fact, entitled to an opinion.” Climate science is most definitely one of those matters.
When you’re not entitled to an opinion, you have a choice: you can buckle down and learn the subject or you can defer to the judgment of the majority of those who seem to know what they’re talking about. I’ve chosen to go with the latter in the full knowledge that I may one day be proven wrong. I know enough about climate science to know that it would take me years and years of study to really get a handle on the subject. Trusting those who’ve studied the subject in depth for decades seems like a pretty good bet to me. I like the odds.
To reject all conspiracy theories out of hand, you have to believe that all of the received wisdom of the present is true. History teaches us that such a faith is unwise. But to embrace a conspiracy theory that involves the rejection of an entire field you know very little about, you have to believe that you know better than all, or almost all, of the experts. Such a faith is, to my mind, far more unwise.
Saying that you have a right to your own opinion is like saying that you have a right to your own belly-button. Of course you do. But so what? The real question is whether or not you have a right to be taken seriously. If you lack the requisite training, knowledge, and experience, then the answer is NO. We’d be wise to ignore your opinion. The right to free speech doesn’t come with a concomitant right to be taken seriously. You can exercise your right to free speech and we’ll exercise our right to ignore you.
When people say they’re entitled to their own opinion, what they really mean is that we have an obligation to listen to them and take them seriously. We have no such obligation.
I’m a fairly smart, well educated guy, and yet on thousands and thousands of subjects, I’m not even qualified to step into the ring. I don’t even know enough to competently articulate a position on these issues; and as our knowledge of the world expands, this list gets longer and longer.
If we’re going to navigate this brave new world of ours intelligently, we’re going to have to cultivate a whole lot of epistemic humility. Alas, I see no humility among those who automatically assume, based on a few weeks of internet research, that they know better than experts who’ve immersed themselves in subjects for decades. The arrogance of these people is astounding.
The fact that experts in a particular field are sometimes wrong doesn’t mean they’re always wrong. Nor does it mean that they’re no better than non-experts. A shitty archer will hit the bull’s eye more often than a blind one. What’s more, shitty archers can learn from their mistakes, correct for them in the future, and get better with time. By contrast, the blind archer never ceases to suck.
—John Faithful Hamer, Social Media Land (2020)
