Comment by paxys
2 years ago
Scientists and researchers collect two decades worth of data and publish peer reviewed papers.
Genius HNer looks as the title, spouts some factually incorrect data to "debunk" it and gets upvoted to the top.
Sadly I'm not just describing this instance but internet discource in general. Critical thinking and analysis is dead in the age of "gotcha" hot takes.
Please make your substantive points without snark or swipes. Otherwise it just makes the thread even worse.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
ironically this comment is annoying and pointless cynicism and meta commentary while the original comment is interesting, although apparently wrong - your response should be deadlast but unfortunately I see it before the other comments explaining where in the paper to find why this reasoning is wrong...
This seems to happen a lot here lately, particularly on earth and space science related topics. After you read the comments on a paper in your field, it becomes depressingly obvious that a lot of the most upvoted commentary is armchair skeptics doing back of the napkin math that sounds good but falls apart upon closer inspection. Gell-mann amnesia effect, etc.
Something else is happening in sone cases. You have research that tells you something, the press picks it up/exaggerates it to the point that it's no longer connected to the real thing + now we are all talking whatifs and have opinions without reading the initial claims.
In cases like this it's more than fair to call bullshit.
Appeal to authority.
An appeal to authority would be “Experts disagreeing with you proves you wrong.” That’s not what they’re saying.
They’re taking as read that the top level comment is wrong (as explained by a number of other comments), and making an observation about the circumstances surrounding the incorrect comment, as well as the theme it represents in the broader discourse.
That's not what an appeal to authority is.
for the record, nothing in the paper makes me feel better about the issue I raised.