First of all, thank you for the reference to Lysenkoism:
"as any deliberate distortion of scientific facts or theories for purposes that are deemed politically, religiously or socially desirable".
But I fail to see the connection with Dyson here.
Having an open discussion about taboo subjects is at the core of progress.
Conflating science with morality is adding another barrier to having those kinds of discussions.
I am aware of Brandolini's Law:
“The amount of energy necessary to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.”
But if the criticism is done in good faith, with the tools of science, I think it's worth the debunking exercise.
Data is just data.
It can be collected with a lot of bias in place and can be interpreted with the same biases.
We are only humans after all.
When you say thinks like:
1. "it's just a dude not even bothering to learn research before dismissing it all as wrong"
2. "he stupidly used his social power to undermine the science"
I feel you are some priest that dismisses the sinner, by pointing out the vices of carelessness and stupidness, in the name of the sanctimony of science.
> as any deliberate distortion of scientific facts or theories for purposes that are deemed politically, religiously or socially desirable
This is precisely what Dyson was engaging in. There was no scientific backing for his critiques, he didn't even bother to learn about what he was critiquing. He just went on a political crusade and pretended that because he had scientific accomplishments in a different field, he was applying the same scientific rigor in climate science. In fact, he was not.
As far as being a "priest," excuse me for caring about basic scientific honesty. This sort of hero worship of Dyson, to the point of excusing extremely bad science and abuse of authority by calling criticism religious, is exactly the sort of stuff that happened in the Soviet Union! Lysenko and Dyson promote the right politics, so they are considered above reproach.
"as any deliberate distortion of scientific facts or theories for purposes that are deemed politically, religiously or socially desirable".
But I fail to see the connection with Dyson here.
Having an open discussion about taboo subjects is at the core of progress.
Conflating science with morality is adding another barrier to having those kinds of discussions.
I am aware of Brandolini's Law:
“The amount of energy necessary to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.”
But if the criticism is done in good faith, with the tools of science, I think it's worth the debunking exercise.
Data is just data. It can be collected with a lot of bias in place and can be interpreted with the same biases. We are only humans after all.
When you say thinks like:
1. "it's just a dude not even bothering to learn research before dismissing it all as wrong" 2. "he stupidly used his social power to undermine the science"
I feel you are some priest that dismisses the sinner, by pointing out the vices of carelessness and stupidness, in the name of the sanctimony of science.