You can also ponder it from the perspective of a rational hijacker. Why fake BFO when you could have just had no pings at all?

You can also ponder it from the perspective of a state who are very keen to keep the news media as distracted as possible from what you're up to.

If this was the goal, then it was achieved admirably - a mystery was provided, and the press took the bait, and largely ignored the brewing unrest in Ukraine.

In terms of the plausibility of his theory... it's plausible. It doesn't mean it's right, but it's plausible. I've been to Baikonur, and it's in the middle of absolutely nothing, has very, very high (Russian) security, and is a pretty ideal place to disappear anything.

The one thing I think he does get wrong is that he thinks building demolition in freezing temperatures is weird. This becomes a hell of a lot less weird when you realise that in the summer, temperatures there reach 50+ Celsius, and doing outdoor work in the dry cold is vastly preferable to doing it under the blazing sun.

It becomes even less weird when you consider that Baikonur is being edged towards end-of-life, as Russia are building their new cosmodrome at Vostochny.

Pondering it from the point of view of the alleged perpetrators is actually the best way to discard theories like this as bullshit.

Making an aircraft disappear might have taken Ukraine off a few front pages, but the propaganda benefit to Russia was - as any reasonable person would have anticipated - minimal at best. It made essentially no difference to Western policy towards Russia, and if anything drew a bit more attention towards crashes involving Malaysian Airlines 777s than was good for Russian interests.

Conversely, the implications of being caught hijacking an aircraft full of civilians and flying it into their own airspace would have been very severe indeed, especially given the number of citizens of their neighbour and only major international ally on board.

Consider the reward is minimal at best, the cost of failure is exceptionally high, and the probability of failing to hijack and fly an aircraft several thousand miles over multiple jurisdictions without detection is comfortably above zero.

Assume that anyone with the acumen to pull this sort of stunt off successfully possesses the faculties to do some basic weighing up of risk and reward an ask yourself why on earth would they do something so risky for such a trivially achieved and insignificant objective as distracting news media

Just because a particular organization theoretically could pull off a particular course of action doesn't mean it's not ridiculous in the extreme to assume they would.

This is all assuming that the ultimate goal was merely to distract the world. IF (it's a big if) some group plotted and executed this elaborate, risky plan, then there must have been something bigger at stake.

Better to have people looking in the wrong place, in a way that they will look indefinitely

I don't think I agree.

I think this is something that can often backfire. If someone creates evidence that say's the plane crashed at location x, when location X is searched and there is no plane, I still have more information than I started. I know the evidence that led me to location x is incorrect. This could be because the data is bad, or due to tampering. If I'm now focused on tampering and able to corroborate that it is tampered with, I now have a new area to narrow my investigation, based on who has the skills, ability, and motives to tamper with that data.

Now, I would agree, if the goal was to create a short term disruption to the investigation, which didn't require holding up to scrutiny in the long run.

It's even worse as a theory when you consider the hijackers give out accurate information as to their distance from the satellite but bet on inaccurate directional data to throw everyone off. You've still narrowed down the search space considerably - not to mention all the time between finding the distance pings and directional pings when the correct path is being checked.

You make a good point, but in this case location X is not a specific coordinate but a wide range of possible coordinates over the ocean.

I suspect the Andaman Sea would have served that purpose just fine. There are other options like the burst data has just been misinterpreted, but the deliberate faking of a never before used piece of data seems very unlikely.

Also, why only turn off pings when you are about to land, and not flying over china-pakistan-india mess?

Because this is where you can bury your evidence real deep.

I started reading this and then I thought of Occam's Razor. This theory is appears way too complex to be true, something much simpler likely happened.

Occam's Razor isn't a way to measure the complexity of a given theory, taken in isolation. Occam's Razor shaves off unnecessary causes, and says that given two theories of equal explanation power, we should choose the simplest one.

But in this case, there is no single simple theory; a crash is a simple theory but is very unlikely, given the available data and the searches that were performed.

The OP's theory of Putin stealing the plane and hiding it in Kazakhstan sure seems far-fetched, extremely complex and, well, crazy, but he acknowledges that fact, and it's still an interesting theory.

The problem is that major air disasters are so incredibly rare that whatever happened is by definition enormously improbable. That means the speculative landscape is fantastically broad: http://www.tjradcliffe.com/?p=1364

Occam's Razor is only useful when one hypothesis stands out above all the rest in prior plausibility. In the case of major air disasters no such single hypothesis is favoured. Almost any prior, up to but not including "zapped by aliens", is sufficiently likely to be in the running.

This is a common misinterpretation of Occam's Razor, IMHO. Simple explanations are not more likely to be true. What Occam's Razor says is that if you have 2 theories that fit the same data, you should pick the simplest one. Why? Because it is simpler, not because it is more likely to be true.

It is important to remember that when we are dealing with scientific theories, we are not really all that concerned with truth. Are Newton's laws "true"? Well, they work reliably given certain constraints and they are definitely more simple than other theories, so it would be stupid not to use them. However, there are data to show that Newton's laws don't hold in other situations. Newton's laws are not "truth" -- they are useful.

Another thing to keep in mind is that a scientific theory must make predictions which are falsifiable. In other words, it must not only fit data in the past, it must continue to fit data into the future. If your idea has no predictions, then it isn't a scientific theory to begin with and Occam's Razor doesn't apply.

In this case, the author has a theory which (presumably -- I haven't checked) fits the data in the past. Even if we had a simpler theory that also fits the data, we couldn't invoke Occam's Razor, because neither theory makes predictions about the future. The event is already finished and will not happen again. With Occam's Razor, I'm saying, "Well, we could imagine it to be like X or like Y and no matter how you slice it, it's going to work the same. I will pick X because it is simpler". But with this event, it makes a huge difference which "theory" I pick, so I can't use Occam's Razor.

Even if I could pick two equivalent theories -- let's say I had a theory that the plane crashed into a mountain and I had another theory that said the plane did a loop-de-loop and then crashed into the mountain. Maybe both ideas fit the data in the past and I could go and verify that the plane ended up crashing into the mountain. Both theories fit the data in the past and fit data in the future. I'll pick the simplest one because, hey, it really doesn't matter if the plane did a loop-de-loop before it crashed.

Now, maybe some people really care about the loop-de-loop. If they can't find any data that supports the loop-de-loop but doesn't support the straight-on-crash, then we are still going to reject the loop-de-loop theory. Why needlessly complicate things when there is no data to differentiate the two theories? But this does not mean that the plane did not do a loop-de-loop. There is no justification for saying that at all. We don't have any data to support one position or the other. We are just accepting the simple answer because it makes our lives easy.

Where most people get this wrong is: - They try to apply it to non-scientific theories. - They try to apply it to a single theory rather than a set of equivalent theories. - They try to apply it to a set of non-equivalent theories. - They believe that the result is "true".

That last one is pernicious because if you believe that something is true just because it is the simplest explanation that fits your data, you have stepped from science to religion.

The theory goes: the simpler answer is more likely to be true because it is impossible for a series of events to be more likely.

The probability of A + B cannot be higher than A or B alone.

Of course that doesn't mean that A + B didn't occur, just that it is less likely.

> The theory goes: the simpler answer is more likely to be true because it is impossible for a series of events to be more likely.

If that were true then we would never have been able to do chemistry in the first place and get anything done by synthesis. The same applies to manufacturing. It's by careful planning and science that you overcome the probabilities and make it possible to conduct a series of events with perfection.

A more charitable interpretation of what I wrote would take it in the context we're discussing here.

A + B become increasingly more likely if you contrive circumstances for them to occur together. But even then the overall probability is increasingly small if you consider the number of events that have to have occurred over the previous 13 or billin years.

> It is important to remember that when we are dealing with scientific theories, we are not really all that concerned with truth.

Isn't truth the only thing science cares about?

Of course truth alone doesn't mean much and we usually conduct science not just for the sake of it, but those are downstream concerns.

> Are Newton's laws "true"? Well, they work reliably given certain constraints and they are definitely more simple than other theories, so it would be stupid not to use them.

Science doesn't necessitate any "reliability" on the theories/premises it uses. You set up your premise apply your theory to it and reach a conclusion.

It's up to others (i.e. engineers) to worry about how valid the premises are.

Deciding to use or not use some other theory as a premise isn't about being or not being "stupid" but rather about being able to prove something that others (be it scientists or engineers) will be interested in reading.

You can't get to the truth from science. You can only build a model of reality.

The degree with which that model corresponds with reality is a measure of truth, for some definitions of truth. But it's still always a map, a projection from reality according to some set of rules. It never actually is reality.

The thing that science cares about is building a better model of reality. Better models mean better predictions and better storytelling. The former is highly useful. The latter, I'm not so sure. Convincing storytelling can elevate a model higher than it's worth. There's a lot of storytelling in macroeconomics, and similarly in evolutionary biology's just-so stories.

I wonder if viewing science through the lens of "true" stories about reality, rather than as a ratchet for generating more precise predictive models, encourages overweighted stories too much.

> Isn't truth the only thing science cares about?

Not really. Truth is what math cares about. In science, there is no truth, there is just what is measurable, but that's just a proxy for reality, not the objective truth. Then you work with whatever measurements you have and try to predict more measurements.

In reference to your paragraph on scientific theory:

In actuality nothing in science or in reality can be proven to be true. In science it is only possible to disprove or falsify theories. You can actually extract this concept from a famous statement in science and statistics:

"Correlation does not imply causation"

This basically means nothing can be proven, we can only correlate things. If you negate that statement it turns into:

"No Correlation does imply non-causation"

Which means by establishing that two things do not correlate we've disproved or falsified causation.

> "No Correlation does imply non-causation"

You're wrong. Random variables can be uncorrelated but not independent [1].

In general, you can't apply "algebra" to logic as you attempted above and explained below. Logic is very precise. To "prove" that `A => B` is equivalent `~B => ~A`, you use truth tables:

    | A | B | A => B | ~B => ~A |
    +---+---+--------+----------+
    | 0 | 0 |    1   |     1    |
    | 0 | 1 |    1   |     1    |
    | 1 | 0 |    0   |     0    |
    | 1 | 1 |    1   |     1    |

Your statements above aren't equivalent; the first is a tautology (it's always true), whereas the second is standard implication, which can be false.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normally_distributed_and_uncorr...

If P is true, its negation is false.

>In actuality nothing in science or in reality can be proven to be true.

If this were the case, the word "true" would have no meaning. We prove things in science all the time. We proved that you can cross a river without getting wet, for instance. We proved that humans can travel to the moon.

The examples are endless, really.

> If P is true, its negation is false.

Where's your proof?

>If P is true, its negation is false.

Not exactly sure what you're referring to here. Still let me give you some detail on how I negated that statement:

I'm essentially negating phrases within the sentence using the distributive property from algebra:

~(<Correlation> <does not imply> <causation>) = (<No Correlation> <does imply> <no causation>)

If the positive statement is valid the negated statement is also valid. Negating +2 into -2 doesn't make the -2 any less true then the +2, in fact it's not even applicable.

You should note that the negated statement (No Correlation does imply no causation) is a fundamental pillar in science experiments. It's part of the reason why researchers always convert their hypothesis to null hypothesis and then try to disprove it.

----------------------------------------------------------

>If this were the case, the word "true" would have no meaning. We prove things in science all the time. We proved that you can cross a river without getting wet, for instance. We proved that humans can travel to the moon. The examples are endless, really.

I want to emphasize that what I'm talking about isn't some theory I made up. This is established scientific philosophy within academia. It's actually one of the harder things to understand because it flies in the face of our natural intuition.

None of your examples have been "proven." What is happening is that you have formed a very reliable conclusion based on intuition, you haven't gathered proof. Lets take a look at your river example...

One way in attempt to gather proof that crossing a river makes you wet is to observe 500 people crossing the river. If you observe that 500 people cross a river and all 500 got wet, what you have established is not a proof but a correlation that crossing the river is correlated to getting wet. Intuitively we assume that this is a proof, but from a rigorous and more philosophical standpoint not only have we not proven anything, it is actually fundamentally impossible to establish a "proof." Try to wrap your head around that.

Let me give you an example that's easier to understand and more inline with our intuitive understanding of the world. The following link is a research study on the correlation between birthrate and the population of storks: http://web.stanford.edu/class/hrp259/2007/regression/storke....

They arrive at the conclusion that baby's are delivered by storks because of the positive correlation. Our intuition tells us that this conclusion is improbable despite the correlation. Note that correlation, intuition and proof are completely separate things.

It is however possible to disprove things. If I establish that there is no correlation between cancer rates and heights then it is by logic impossible for height to cause higher cancer rates. What I have done is disproven height as a causative factor for cancer.

It is fundamentally impossible to prove anything. It is only possible to establish correlations. Correlations can only be used to falsify things or demonstrate the possibility of causation. This is not some weird thing I made up, this is established knowledge. I don't blame people for voting my OP down; Many researchers don't consider or even learn about the implications that the scientific method has on reality as we know it.

>This is established scientific philosophy within academia.

Well, I'm sure that is proof of its correctness?

>What is happening is that you have formed a very reliable conclusion based on intuition, you haven't gathered proof.

That's what proof is. Saying proof is not proof is not all that useful a conclusion to draw.

>it is actually fundamentally impossible to establish a "proof."

See? That's why it's a stupid conclusion.

>None of your examples have been "proven."

Did we go to the moon or didn't we? If going to the moon is not proof that we can go to the moon, then I don't see what business you have to say any of this.

>It is fundamentally impossible to prove anything. It is only possible to establish correlations.

Correlations are what the word "proof" refers to.

>This is not some weird thing I made up, this is established knowledge.

Well, congratulations. You've just established that God exists, too.

---

"Proof" is that which is convincing to a 'fair and rational' mind. All you need are correlations that marginalize error. Things that are proven are true up to the invalidation of your assumptions. In science, those assumptions are experiences. In mathematics, they are axioms. There is no fundamental difference between the two, because mathematical axioms are also observed linguistic experiences.

>Correlations are what the word "proof" refers to. >That's what proof is. Saying proof is not proof is not all that useful a conclusion to draw.

No. Proof is a synonym for causation not correlation. Establishing correlation between stork population and baby population is not establishing proof that storks bring babies to mothers. Proof and correlation are entirely different things.

>See? That's why it's a stupid conclusion.

Sure applying the scientific method to daily life is stupid, but we're not talking about that. We're talking about the nature of logic itself. That is the context of this debate. You're attempting to deny the validity of my argument by shifting the context into some vague definition of the word proof.

I didn't say proof is a synonym for correlation, I said proof refers to correlation. Causation is itself a kind of correlation, but I wouldn't wouldn't call either of them synonyms. They are structural relations on experience.

Proof will compel rational systems into agreement. If I submit a proof to a computer, it will consume it and output that-which-was-proved. The correlation between the structure of the inputs and outputs are what the word 'proof' refers to. It's not that complicated.

>You're attempting to deny the validity of my argument by shifting the context into some vague definition of the word proof.

I'm not defining proof, I'm just telling you what it is. Words don't require definition to have meaning.

>Sure applying the scientific method to daily life is stupid

I don't know why you'd say this or why you think I'd agree with it.

You are starting from the assumption that science doesn't proof things (a statement that you no doubt have no proof of) and used it to conclude that proof is meaningless. What a fine conclusion -- it's utterly useless. But rather than imagine that your assumption was wrong, you want to dig in because "so many people" told you it was correct. Well? Give me a proof. Why should anyone believe these things? What rational advantage do you have by claiming proof is impossible?

Furthermore, why would you -- while saying proof is impossible -- ignore the fact that mathematics -- a discipline completely enamored with proof -- be a useful basis for science if science had no need of proof? Does that not strike you as completely absurd? Why would you believe such a thing?

>What rational advantage do you have by claiming proof is impossible?

Rational advantage? You think I'm just stating bullshit for some kind of advantage? Look it up yourself. When did I say "so many people" told me so. Nobody told me shit, You can look this stuff up, it's established academic knowledge. Here's a link to start off with:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability

>Furthermore, why would you -- while saying proof is impossible -- ignore the fact that mathematics -- a discipline completely enamored with proof -- be a useful basis for science if science had no need of proof? Does that not strike you as completely absurd? Why would you believe such a thing?

Look up the mathematics section on that wikipedia page I just linked. first line: "Many philosophers believe that mathematics is not experimentally falsifiable, and thus not a science"

Now the question you should ask yourself is not why I would believe such a thing but why it strikes you as completely absurd when it's common knowledge in science.

>You are starting from the assumption that science doesn't proof things (a statement that you no doubt have no proof of) and used it to conclude that proof is meaningless. What a fine conclusion -- it's utterly useless. But rather than imagine that your assumption was wrong, you want to dig in because "so many people" told you it was correct. Well? Give me a proof. Why should anyone believe these things?

Have you ever done science? You know the first thing they do after they come up with a hypothesis? I can tell you they don't immediately try to prove the hypothesis. The first thing they do is convert the hypothesis to a NULL hypothesis and then they try to DISPROVE it. It is the central tenant and quest of science to disprove the NULL hypothesis. Why do you think they do this? Does this not strike you as odd?

If you STILL don't believe me then take a look at the following page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_evidence#Concept_of_...

I found this page on wikipedia searching for "scientific proof." Anyway, to "prove" what I say has legitimacy please read the following:

Under the section "Utility of Scientific Evidence": "Philosophers, such as Karl R. Popper, have provided influential theories of the scientific method within which scientific evidence plays a central role.[6] In summary, Popper provides that a scientist creatively develops a theory which may be falsified by testing the theory against evidence or known facts. Popper's theory presents an asymmetry in that evidence can prove a theory wrong, by establishing facts that are inconsistent with the theory. In contrast, evidence cannot prove a theory correct because other evidence, yet to be discovered, may exist that is inconsistent with the theory.[7]"

Did you get that? He says "Science cannot prove a theory correct." Read that and understand it. I guarantee your perspective of the world will widen as a result. I know we're a little hostile right now but if you put that aside and try to internalize and understand what he says then this knowledge you gain will represent a paradigm shift in your understanding of the world. It did for me.

Now go to the end of that page and read the last paragraph: "While the phrase "scientific proof" is often used in the popular media,[13] many scientists have argued that there is really no such thing. For example, Karl Popper once wrote that "In the empirical sciences, which alone can furnish us with information about the world we live in, proofs do not occur, if we mean by 'proof' an argument which establishes once and for ever the truth of a theory,"[14] and Satoshi Kanazawa has argued that "Proofs exist only in mathematics and logic, not in science."[15]"

If you understood what you just read then not only should you know why proving things is impossible, you should also know that the nonexistence of proof in reality is established scientific knowledge.

First off, I'm not uninformed on these matters. I've read all this before, and I don't need a lecture. I was in your shoes at one time.

>he first thing they do is convert the hypothesis to a NULL hypothesis and then they try to DISPROVE it.

Yes, you do a straightforward bijective transformation using no new information, and apparently everything is different. That's not important. You're just highlighting a duality between proof and disproof. You're proving invalidity rather than validity. It's still proof.

As for the rest of your post: Appeal to authority is not an argument. Appeal to popularity is not an argument. These people are wrong. That's essentially what I'm arguing.

I'm not claiming that everyone agrees with me. So why would I debate that? Why are you debating that?

This whole section seems implausible:

> It’s not possible to spoof the BFO data on just any plane. The plane must be of a certain make and model, 17equipped with a certain make and model of satellite-communications equipment,18 and flying a certain kind of route19 in a region covered by a certain kind of Inmarsat satellite.20 If you put all the conditions together, it seemed unlikely that any aircraft would satisfy them. Yet MH370 did.

If your goal was stealing a large airplane, I think there's easier ways of doing that. If your goal was getting at the cargo or the passengers, it's highly probable that doing it on the ground is also much easier.

You know, an airplane completely disappearing IS implausible. Airplane crashes leave debris. Finding much of the plane isn't likely, but finding absolutely nothing if you search in the right place is a stretch. Like looking for straws in a haystack and not finding even one.

http://aviationweek.com/commercial-aviation/emirates-clark-s... says it well.

Here's a simper theory: Some kind of structural failure caused a fire and possibly also a decompression - or the other way around. While following the procedure to handle the problem ( disable AP, descend, turn back, shut down the damaged avionics) the pilots lost consciousness and the plane eventually leveled out and kept flying until it run out of fuel. While it's not likely that something punches a hole in an aeroplane and simultaneously sets it on fire, either from the inside or the outside, it's more likely than any crazy conspiracy theories I've seen so far, including the article.

I guess this indeed the most plausible theory. But then how plausible is it that no debris was found? Too much time went by, the area is too big for us to notice?

The ocean is huge. They didn't look in the right place initially. The area that needs to be searched may be as large as half of USA. I do not know how far debris scatters, and how fast it will sink.

Also: why would hijackers need (and indeed rely on) auto-landing?

They would capture perfectly good pilots along with the plane.

Yes, but then there would never be conspiracies because they are almost always more complicated than non-conspiracies.

And indeed there almost never are.

Funny, secret archives being unlocked 50+ after the facts actually DO shows there were "plans made without public knowledge" (that could be called conspiracies if you prefer) very frequently. Do you think you know everything of the government's actions ?

The simpler theory is our governments have lied repeatedly, are able to intercept our digital communications without warrant, and probably hide a whole bunch of other things from us, and will continue to do so.

No convoluted conspiracy theories necessary.

Yet Occam's Razor is rarely found to be true - it's actually easy to hide a slightly more complex plan and make it look like a simple one and convincing everyone by saying "think Occam's Razor". Occam's Razor is not rationality, it's just brain applying laziness to assume nothing ever complicated occurs.

Edit: a very simple example: look at magic tricks. If Occam's Razor was true, then all magic tricks should imply that those who perform them are actually magicians. Or, we all know it's not the case, so there is indeed a more complicated trick being performed that is difficult to uncover just by looking at things.

"If Occam's Razor was true, then all magic tricks should imply that those who perform them are actually magicians."

You obviously don't understand Occams Razor.

I don't know much of anything about that type of technology, but I think it's far more useful to judge these types of theories based upon the political side. This means questions that go like:

If it was a conspiracy, it must have been carried out by some group. Who was that group? What are the goals of that group? Why did that group decide that the proposed plan was the best way to use their limited resources to achieve their goal, as opposed to some other plan?

I suppose the group here would be Putin and/or some group of Russian nationalists, and the goal would be to get the Ukrainian conflict out of the news.

Then the plan would involve a highly elaborate scheme of secretly designing sophisticated equipment, performing careful analysis, and smuggling highly-trained personnel onto a flight for the purpose of secretly diverting it to an obscure airfield. Then you'd have to execute all of the passengers who weren't in on it and dispose of their bodies and the plane somewhere where they won't be found for a long time, and make sure that none of the people who were in on it ever talk about it. And if you screw any of that up at any point, then you get the opposite of what your goal was - massive media attention of what a world-class asshole you are.

But if the goal is to disappear the flight for news coverage, why bother with all of that when 1% of the effort and even less risk would get it to crash somewhere in the Indian ocean, where it would likely never be found?

Why bother with any of it at all? Aren't there lots of much simpler ways to distract the news media? Does anybody in Russia even care that much what the Western media thinks?

Another thing - what about China? As far as I know, the US and Europe are currently unhappy at Russian interference in the Ukraine, but China don't seem to care much. There were a lot of Chinese nationals on that flight, though, and I bet China would be very unhappy indeed if it was ever discovered that they were killed by Russia in a ham-fisted attempt to distract the Western media. Possibly enough to lead to a change in the Chinese position on the conflict, including diplomatic, economic, and maybe military support for the Western position. Why would Russia take that risk, when there must be far simpler options out there?

I find that a lot of conspiracy theories fall apart under this type of analysis, without even paying much attention to the technical details. If you want me to believe that this happened, you've gotta come up with a group and set of goals that make it look like a good idea.

This reminds me a lot of this Kurz Gesagt video:

"The Ultimate Conspiracy Debunker" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hug0rfFC_L8

The idea in this video is also that most conspiracy theories are easy to debunk without even analyzing the contents of the theory, just looking at political factors.

This is how I feel about climate change.

I've struggled with this as well when it comes to issues that are under heavier debate [1]. I like to think that I am capable of reading most technical things and evaluating them with a healthy skepticism, but at a certain point, I know that I just have to trust people who are smarter than me.

One thing I try to pay attention to is consensus. It's probably very easy to get duped by a single voice that's smarter than you (or just knows more about a specific subject), but it's less probable that a bunch of those people are all in on it together. The larger the consensus, the easier it is to trust.

I think I have read (source?) that the consensus level on the broad category of climate change and whether it's likely to end badly for us is pretty near the high 90% if not close to the 99-100% mark. But then when it comes to the more detailed bits like how bad, and how soon, that's where I don't know who to listen to. Any suggestions?

[1] - I don't like the word debate here because it feels loaded, but I can't think of a better one.

Update: I feel silly even amending this, but upon re-reading my post, I see there may be some doubt as to whether I believe in climate change. I do, and only after a healthy amount of research and some level of blind trust in consensus of people more knowledgeable than myself. The uncertainty I have is around what the effects will be, how severe, and how soon. The answers to those help to inform my choices on how to go about helping fix it.

The oft-cited statistic is "97% of climate scientists believe in anthropogenic climate change" and the wikipedia article [1] is actually quite thorough. I personally do not know any scientist who doesn't believe in global warming, although I did know some skeptics a decade ago. Skepticism is healthy, but so is respecting statistical tests.

No one really knows the specifics of what's going to happen, but the latest IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has started focusing on 'adaptation' as some degree of climate change is inevitable (and, indeed, has already happened). The IPCC would be my choice as the closest guess as to what the next century will look like [2]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_c...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPCC_Fifth_Assessment_Report

    > it's less probable that a bunch of those people are
    > all in on it together. The larger the consensus, the
    > easier it is to trust.

No. It's in consensus that big lies get their best cover. History is awash with big lies hiding in consensus. Slavery is ok. Aristotlean theory of elements. Female inferiority. Divine right of kings. White man's burden. Inevitability of the technocrats. House prices always go up. Object oriented programming will solve all our problems. Anything to do with eating habits - salt, cholesterol, etc.

My favourite is bloodletting. Everyone thought it was true, for thousands of years. If you'd argued against it people would have thought you were crazy. And we now know that it's rubbish. All those well-educated men of all those centuries were todies who didn't have a clue what they were doing. (Or - who knew exactly what they were doing - getting the good patronage and the good women)

Climage change is fun. It's easy to follow the money on - it's just the latest mysticism of 'educated people'. The rebranding thing from "global warming" is pure weasel.

There's a lot of sense in looking at the consensus opinion as a starting point. And you should be wary of going against consensus - it's easy to get burnt by its momentum, people will treat you as a crank, your counter theories may be wrong also. And - it's easy to excuse your actions if you go with consensus and it turns out to be wrong later. But its status as consensus should give it no actual credibility in your mind.

Your post can be applied to mostly any theory ever.

Yes. The key thing I was (attempting to) respond to was the idea that consensus is a good indication of truth. My final sentence overstated things: we all all forced to piece together a worldview with slabs taken from consensus, but it's something to be concerned about, not celebrated. It's much easier to get duped by consensus than a single voice that's smarter than you.

I'll quote straight from Steven Pinker's 'The Better Angels of Our Nature':

--- Once again it seems to me that the appropriate response is “maybe, but maybe not.” Though climate change can cause plenty of misery and deserves to be mitigated for that reason alone, it will not necessarily lead to armed conflict. The political scientists who track war and peace, such as Halvard Buhaug, Idean Salehyan, Ole Theisen, and Nils Gleditsch, are skeptical of the popular idea that people fight wars over scarce resources.290 Hunger and resource shortages are tragically common in sub-Saharan countries such as Malawi, Zambia, and Tanzania, but wars involving them are not. Hurricanes, floods, droughts, and tsunamis (such as the disastrous one in the Indian Ocean in 2004) do not generally lead to armed conflict. The American dust bowl in the 1930s, to take another example, caused plenty of deprivation but no civil war. And while temperatures have been rising steadily in Africa during the past fifteen years, civil wars and war deaths have been falling. Pressures on access to land and water can certainly cause local skirmishes, but a genuine war requires that hostile forces be organized and armed, and that depends more on the influence of bad governments, closed economies, and militant ideologies than on the sheer availability of land and water. Certainly any connection to terrorism is in the imagination of the terror warriors: terrorists tend to be underemployed lower-middle-class men, not subsistence farmers.291 As for genocide, the Sudanese government finds it convenient to blame violence in Darfur on desertification, distracting the world from its own role in tolerating or encouraging the ethnic cleansing.

In a regression analysis on armed conflicts from 1980 to 1992, Theisen found that conflict was more likely if a country was poor, populous, politically unstable, and abundant in oil, but not if it had suffered from droughts, water shortages, or mild land degradation. (Severe land degradation did have a small effect.) Reviewing analyses that examined a large number (N) of countries rather than cherry-picking one or two, he concluded, “Those who foresee doom, because of the relationship between resource scarcity and violent internal conflict, have very little support in the large-N literature." Salehyan adds that relatively inexpensive advances in water use and agricultural practices in the developing world can yield massive increases in productivity with a constant or even shrinking amount of land, and that better governance can mitigate the human costs of environmental damage, as it does in developed democracies. Since the state of the environment is at most one ingredient in a mixture that depends far more on political and social organization, resource wars are far from inevitable, even in a climate-changed world.

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Should we do nothing about climate change? Probably not. Panicking is not likely to help either. Given that the Cold War didn't end in a scorched earth I do believe we are capable of pulling together and dealing with what's in front of us.

(Edit: formatting)

This illustrates that feel: http://imgur.com/r/IASIP/YQi3ZFz