All of WillPetillo's Comments + Replies

I'd like to add some nuance to the "innocent until proven guilty" assumption in the concluding remarks.

Standard of evidence is a major question in legal matters and heavily context-dependent.  "Innocent until proven guilty" is a popular understanding of the standard for criminal guilt and it makes sense for that to be "beyond a reasonable doubt" because the question at hand is whether a state founded on principles of liberty should take away the freedom of one of its citizens.  Other legal disputes, such as in civil liability, have different stan... (read more)

Just saw this, sure!

#7: (Scientific) Doomsday Track Records Aren't That Bad

Historically, the vast majority of doomsday claims are based on religious beliefs, whereas only a small minority have been supported by a large fraction of relevant subject matter experts.  If we consider only the latter, we find:

A) Malthusian crisis: false...but not really a doomsday prediction per se.
B) Hole in the ozone layer: true, but averted because of global cooperation in response to early warnings.
C) Climate change: probably true if we did absolutely nothing; probably mostly averted becau... (read more)