Evidence?

My sister, a charming person, posted on FB that some projections state that sea levels will rise 200 feet.  And that will displace a lot of folks.  From that projection she wants the country to declare WWIII and get busy saving these folks - no matter what the cost.

From Mr. G, a friend also on FB, recited the mantra that the polar bears would die, the mosquitoes would give us all malaria, the sea levels were coming up and several other points that are usually brought up if you believe that the party line about catastrophic global warming and its after-effects.

But none of this is evidence that it will happen.  It might be evidence of why these folks are scared.

It's easy to assume part 1, then of course we have parts 2, 3, 4, etc.  It's a nice means to avoid discussion of the reality of part 1.  I judged a science fair project, high schoolers, and one of the projects started out with, "Due to the danger of global warming..."  It's great to be able to assume that at the get go.  I asked the kid about that.  I don't remember the answer, but since the "science is settled," I guess it wouldn't really matter.

If you can make your response more emotional, then it's a bigger barrier to discussion, "think of the dead children!"  And "future generations."  Where does this stuff come from?  Is this a defense mechanism to avoid having to think about it?

Why do we all leap to assume part 1 is true?  Bias confirmation?  No means to critically think about anything?  No ability with numbers, or probabilities or understanding of uncertainty?

Uncertainty is an interesting concept that doesn't show up too much in day to day decisions.  I got involved in it at work.  If I tell you you have 2 of something, but my uncertainty is 4, do you really have anything?  When is this "2" not truly a 0?  What is my limit of detection?  What the hell is a type I or II error?  And should I care?

When the ad says that 6 is greater than 1, should I throw a brick at the tv?  They are discussing medicine that helps with cold symptoms and their product addresses 6 symptoms/allergy factors and not the one that others deal with.  Let's assume this is true.  They wouldn't lie to us, would they?  But is it meaningful?  Maybe.  But there is evidence that it isn't.  What's that? you ask.  If the other factors were significant wouldn't we have other products that addressed them?  I'm assuming that these factors are already known and the "science is settled."

Thus, if one thinks a bit about it, there is evidence that this product might be better than the others, but probably not by much.  Do all colds or allergies attacks have all of these factors?  I don't know, but it would be useful to know before we decide to buy this new stuff.

Also, presumably there are different chemicals in the new pills.  Should we worry about cross reactions with other stuff?  It opens up a bunch of questions, yet we are presented with "6 > 1" as the selling point.

I'm almost happier with "sea levels will rise" and "all the polar bears will die."