> Even if they said how many models they looked at before choosing 14 models (and explained why they chose those 14), conspiracy theorists and people skeptical of climate science would still argue that it is not legitimate because of survivorship bias and several other reasons.

Undoubtedly some would, but are you willing to consider the possibility that the number/percentage of people that would do so might be altered by the language used in articles on climate science?

> People can always suggest more tests you need to do or poke holes in any analysis.

Some analyses are easier to poke holes in than others. If this article was tightened up in the manner I describe, excluding the possibility of survivorship bias, then an entirely new approach to denial would be required. As written, survivorship bias is a very real possibility.

Wikipedia says: "Survivorship bias or survival bias is the logical error of concentrating on the people or things that made it past some selection process and overlooking those that did not, typically because of their lack of visibility. This can lead to false conclusions in several different ways. It is a form of selection bias."

Survivorship bias is a real phenomenon, not a conspiracy theory. It is neither illogical or unscientific to consider the possibility that is might be in play behind the scenes here, and the article as written makes no attempt to rule it out.

> Overall it is impressive that different models made over 30 years can predict fairly accurate results. In my opinion that shows that the underlying physics of the models is correct and makes me trust the models even more.

I suspect this is because your mind does not consider it a possibility that the models discussed do not result from survivorship bias. A conspiratorial mind however, would most likely strongly consider that a possibility, and therefore compute a completely different level of trust.

Imagine for a moment how the human mind works when reading something. Typically, if the mind is primed with preexisting beliefs, it is going to be actively searching (interpreting) for confirmation of those beliefs, and this behavior will likely be stronger if the topic happens to be one associated with one's identity. So, your mind processes an article such as this optimistically (uncritically), whereas a "denier" or "conspiracy theorist" is going to read it pessimistically (critically).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias#Biased_inter...

https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-a-confirmation-bias-279...

Here is another interesting example. See this reddit thread on the article: https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/e63ic5/of_17_clima...

The top comment is: (/u/aClimateScientist) "Hi all, I'm a coauthor of this paper (Henri Drake) and happy to answer questions."

Someone asks the question: "How did you account for survivorship bias of models? IOW how did you select the 17? I mean if I asked 1,000 psychics to predict GDP growth, I could probably find 10-20 who were pretty close and say that that proves they're clairvoyant."

As of when I'm writing this, neither /u/aClimateScientist nor /u/avogadros_number (the article submitter, who seems to have considerable background in climate science) have addressed this question.

(Or, same thread: a moderator [Removed] comment.)

My question to you is: do you think it is possible that the manner in which your mind evaluates this particular situation (an unanswered question, in a thread with 29 total comments) may differ from how the mind of a "denier" or "conspiracy theorist" might evaluate the situation, and how that evaluation may in turn be used (or not) to tune your respective mental models and subconscious heuristics?

A followup question is: do you believe this perspective is irrelevant (has no bearing on) the climate change dilemma?

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I sometimes wonder if the climate change dilemma was reproduced in a sim-style video game, would the human mind be less resistant to recognizing and reacting to the behavior of their adversary? If the adversary is a machine rather than a human, might the tribalism component of subconscious decision making decrease? This is one of those things that seems so obvious, I wonder if there might be some studies on it.

As shocked as people here are at the continued existence of "deniers" (or more accurately, their mental models of deniers), I am similarly shocked at the psychological unwillingness of intelligent people to acknowledge certain unfortunate realities. It's kind of comically/tragically ironic if you think about it.