Yes.

Sure, but there's a level of entry to the "challenge" call to action. When folks are saying "believe in the science", it also means to believe in the scientific method, which does include challenging observations and independently validating conclusions. A proper challenge requires coming up to the plate, proposing a challenging hypothesis to a given conclusion, and then going through the work required to test your hypothesis, documenting the inputs, the variables, and showcasing your outputs.

What this doesn't mean is the average human who does not like the conclusion producing a statement saying "I don't think that's real", or even going so far as to cite data which could appear to refute the conclusion, are producing a challenge to the conclusion. They're just stating an opinion. This isn't designed to be exclusionary, but to ensure that challengers are going through the effort that the producer of the conclusion did. If one is not willing to learn the problem space enough to reasonably challenge the effort, then that challenge is moot.

Not too long ago, a creationist would have sarcastically asked "Does this extend to biology too?", and gone away thinking they had made an actual argument.

Try challenging climate science, even in a valid way, and see how popular it is on reddit or HN or twitter. Even my above comment now has a negative score which sort of proves my point.

note: i don't deny climate science but like any science there are ways to challenge it

> Even my above comment now has a negative score which sort of proves my point.

Tone matters and your tone matches up really well with someone trying to “gotcha” the people around them, which is obnoxious.

> i don't deny climate science but like any science there are ways to challenge it

Not successfully.

> Not successfully.

Never?

Again, this sounds an awful lot like the creationist rhetoric from 2 decades ago.

"Try challenging evolutionary biology, even in a valid way, and see how popular it is".

All crackpots think they're under siege and that their ideas are unfairly dismissed. Their ideas are "valid" (because they say so), so why are those ideas being dismissed without due consideration? You hear the same rhetoric from anti-vaxxers, creationists and climate change doubters.

The problem is a lack of perspective. Crackpots of all stripes don't know that they're crackpots. To them, their distorted thought patterns aren't distorted.

Calling groups “crazy” to dismiss their arguments is a classic ad hominem.

At the same time, it's a common mistake to believe that any argument that anyone is capable of making is automatically as valid as any other argument. Some arguments are simply more valid than others; there's no use in humoring people just because they think their unfounded opinion is as valid as any other.

Or maybe I should just defer to how Isaac Asimov put it: "There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'"

I'm not dismissing any particular argument. I'm dismissing the attitude espoused in comments like this:

> Try challenging climate science, even in a valid way, and see how popular it is on reddit or HN or twitter.

It is an attitude that is a hallmark of cranks of all forms who think they've pierced the vale, but almost inevitably they have fallen for some distorted thinking that they can't see beyond due to the limitations of being trapped in their own head and echo chamber.

I would add that logical fallacies like ad hominem are only useful up to a point. In the real world, once a group of people advance N obviously false arguments, they will lose credibility and their N+1th argument will be treated less seriously. I don't think the N+1th argument should ever be entirely ignored, but these people can't expect to be up on a podium presenting to a climatology conference if they have a long history of advancing ludicrous and/or dishonest arguments and have no deep expertise in the domain.

> It is an attitude that is a hallmark of cranks of all forms who think they've pierced the vale

And labeling groups who disagree with them as “heretics”, “crazies”, “cranks”, etc is how the orthodoxy censors — as they’ve done for thousands of years.

That the orthodoxy seeks to censors dissent rather than address it, particularly when ignoring their own ridiculous members (eg, Al Gore and Greta Thunberg making absurd statements), is why trust in institutions has collapsed. Institutions now routinely engage in obviously dumb ideas because they censor their critics and then run off a metaphorical cliff.

In allowing themselves to censor and demean “cranks”, orthodox institutions have rotted badly — both from the perspective of delivering quality results and from the perspective of driving effective policy change.

> And labeling groups who disagree with them as “heretics”, “crazies”, “cranks”, etc is how the orthodoxy censors

It's also how you accurately describe people who actually are cranks, such as creationists, flat earthers, anti-vaxxers, and so on. That these labels can sometimes be wrongly weaponized doesn't mean that such descriptions aren't also sometimes accurate and helpful.

It's useful to have a unifying descriptive label because it reflects the fact that all these groups of people are similar in one important way: they think there exists an orthodoxy that are stifling any questioning of an official narrative. When, in reality, this "orthodoxy" are simply a group of people who know more about the topic than you, and who view the crank in the same way that you view flat earthers. As people with distorted thinking who have advanced an argument that is entirely void of merit.

> That the orthodoxy seeks to censors dissent rather than address it

How do you think biologists should deal with the claims of creationists? That's not a rhetorical question. There are many, many groups with a grievance against the "orthodoxy", who harbour perceptions of being ignored/censored Do you think creationists are unfairly treated by biologists? Or do you think biologists are correct to ignore them? If you think biologists are correct in doing so, doesn't that violate the principles you've outlined?

> (eg, Al Gore and Greta Thunberg making absurd statements)

Climate activists != climatologists.

I mostly agree with your take. But I think considering that 99.999...% of the population are not climate scientists, it is still a valid question based on what they are declaring differing opinions as invalid and theirs as correct. Is that not based mostly on faith, next to some superficial indicators like "majority of scientists", etc.?

For the record - I personally agree with the findings of bodies like the IPCC. But I am not sure there is more than the aforementioned faith and some more indicators backing me up on that.

> Is that not based mostly on faith, next to some superficial indicators like "majority of scientists", etc.?

I believe it should be the same rule of thumb we are accustomed to using elsewhere.

If we have a computer security question, we will defer to the people who have dedicated 30 years of their life to mastering computer security. Whatever their opinion is, it's statistically more likely to be correct than whatever opinion I have after 2 weeks of "research". Likewise for astronomy, neurosurgery, being a pilot, and any other complicated area of study. I can't fly a plane, I can't operate the LHC, and I don't know anything about vaccines, so in all of these areas I need to outsource my opinions, to an extent, to the people that know these things better than everyone else. It's not perfect, and we can call that imperfection faith, but I can't think of a better approach.

The problem here is that it is much easier to create bullshit than it is to refute it. At some point you have to stop addressing the points of people who have repeatedly been incorrect, because there are better uses of your time.

> "Try challenging evolutionary biology, even in a valid way, and see how popular it is".

Here are two biologists that might not agree with your statement. https://www.youtube.com/@DarkHorsePod/

People are "against" challenging climate science because a) it is extremely mature and the broad strokes as well as most of the fine strokes are overwhelmingly settled and have been for decades, and b) challenge implies a delay, which is not something we can afford; this tactic is often used by people engaging in bad faith, using the guise of "challenge" to discredit the science.

People are probably downvoting you because you're coming across as either contrarian at best or bad-faith at worst. Surely you realize this.

I would say yes, but not for political reasons, which I pay zero attention to.

I just believe that there is a tremendous amount of pressure (financial and otherwise) to publish, there is academic pressure to toe the line on popular theories, and humans are fallible.

This is most likely the same for climate science as it is for medical research or any scientific field.