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Global Warming Only a Theory, Says School Board
BendingSpoons writes "A Seattle school board has placed a moratorium on screenings of 'An Inconvenient Truth', having found its subject matter too controversial. Echoing the language of the evolution debate, the school board found that students must be told that global warming is only a theory and presented with an opposing viewpoint. The ban was prompted by the complaints of a parent: '"Condoms don't belong in school, and neither does Al Gore. He's not a schoolteacher," said Frosty Hardison, a parent of seven who also said that he believes the Earth is 14,000 years old. "The information that's being presented is a very cockeyed view of what the truth is ... The Bible says that in the end times everything will burn up, but that perspective isn't in the DVD."'"
Federal Way is almost 26 miles south of Seattle, and the only thing in common both cities have is that they both share the same county. It's like saying San Jose is San Francisco, because they both have "San" in their names.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
When global warming isn't a theory anymore, it will kind of be like hell on earth. So I guess the bible is right?
- Aetheral Research -
Frosty Hardison, a parent of seven who also said that he believes the Earth is 14,000 years old.
The fundamentalist Christians are out breeding the rest of us. We must catch up.
Libertarian Leaning Political Discussion Forum.
But what do other opposing sources say?
The Koran?
Hindu beliefs?
Various Native (North and South) American legends?
Buddhist Teachings?
If you are going to provide one opposing viewpoint, you better be ready to provide many others as well.
This space unintentionally left blank.
In other words ...
Washington, Gore, the whole lot. We all know that the truth about both the age of the earth and cause of global warming lies in the truth as told by His Noodleness on high.
Ramen.
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"Only a theory". What arguments do they have against it? A theory is the best explanation for an observed phenomena. These quacks should get their heads out of the sand.
Yes, global warming is happening. It is something that is measured. It is something that can be verified using physical modeling. In fact, the world is warming at an alarming rate. There is not a single reputable scientist who denies it. Only in the news media do you find this "controversy".
Does Al Gore get all the facts in his movie? No, but it does not diminish his message.
I own An Inconvenient Truth (the movie not the book). And I would like to say that although some people still consider the effects that are predicted by that movie to be "a theory," they are hard to disprove. A fact is that we're sitting at carbon levels in our atmosphere above anything ever indicated by ice cores from around the world. Correlating the temperature with carbon levels could be construed as erroneous. Maybe the temperatures have a capping limit? I don't want to think up possibilities because I happen to agree heavily with that correlation.
Now, I might have sat here and ranted and raved about how I watched material in high school or grade school on physics or nature programs that could have been just as theoretical as An Inconvenient Truth but I'm not going to. Why? Well, there were two points in the movie that I didn't care for. One was the election campaign. The other was Gore's son's near death experience. These are political and emotional issues. They do not belong in science nor do they belong being taught in a classroom setting that is centered on science. Politics class? Psychology class? Maybe. But I would really wish he had stuck to the facts and used that valuable time that he had my undivided attention to counter some arguments I've heard against his movie.
I have tried to keep an open mind about this issue for both sides. Gore's movie certainly swayed me, I'm not ashamed or afraid to admit that. The fact is that it's a political issue no matter how much science is involved. If parents don't want it taught to their children, that's fine. I've bought the movie twice (once for me, once for my sister), the word will get out someway somehow.
My work here is dung.
"All you have to do is be fragile and grateful. So stay the underdog." Chuck Palahniuk, Choke
Kids are often surprisingly smart, if you just tell them the real deal. A critical missing element of public education is teaching kids to adjudicate competing claims. This topic is a wonderful opportunity to teach science, civics, critical thinking, and world religions in a single issue, without being dry.
It would be a shame for us to simply demand that the school board decide that global warming is the truth, and miss a great teaching opportunity. I hope we don't do that.
Also, condoms do belong in schools. Safe sex is important, and they're having sex anyway. Anyone who thinks differently is probably an idiot. 90% of Americans have pre-maritial sex (link) seems pretty damn important.
Oh, and I'm pretty sure Al Gore was a professor at Columbia for a time (visiting I know..) and that he's smarter than the idiot who seriously believes the earth is a few thousand years old.
My rantings, only longer and with better spelling..
...yet despite that nonsense, a school board kowtowed to his demands. That has a powerful message: the toughest argument to fight is an invalid one, especially in front of an uneducated audience.
You used one yourself, in fact- you engaged in ad hominem. Maybe he is a hick; it doesn't affect the validity of his argument, which can be dismissed on other grounds (example: one is science, the other is a belief system.) It's no different than saying "well, that pro-evolution scientist is GAY!"
Furthermore, the article summary and TFA both help perpetuate the myth that evolution and global warming are theories. They're not. They're proven fact- and one of the reasons An Inconvenient Truth is so unpopular with those who don't "believe" in global warming is because it step-by-step, methodically destroys every argument they've used against global warming. Evolution is also proven fact based on not just a decade or two of research, but more than a century and a half of research.
Please help metamoderate.
Exactly. Use the DVD as a teaching tool. Teach the kids to look at it critically, find fault ( if they can ) and draw conclusions. Experiment, research the facts.
Spoonfeeding them the answer and expecting them to swallow it without thinking isn't teaching, it's brainwashing. Even if you're brainwashing with correct information, it's still brainwashing.
A resonable science class wouldn't just tell students that oxygen is necessary for a candle to burn, but would allow the students to experiment to "prove" it to themselves, to observe the conditions that drove someone else to that conclusion years ago.
If you teach that a DVD is 100% correct, and one single fact turns out to be incorrect, does it invalidate the whole DVD? No, but coming to that conclusion requires critical thinking, and critical thinking needs to be taught.
I respect your religion -- and all religions -- but I am one of those people who loathes fundamentalism and bandies about terms like "religious nuts" and "religious fascists." It is not the "religious" side of the equation which I find loathesome, but the "nut" side of it.
Religion does not belong in politics. America fought a revolution to support the idea of brotherhood and equality between humans, and rid the world of archaic notions about some humans being more worthy than other humans, such as so-called "kings" (who, it must be remembered, were thought to derive their political power from divine power).
There is so much about Christianity (and other religions) which is patently un-American, including its references to this dude who died 2,000 years ago as some kind of currently existing "Prince" or a "Lord" or "King" to be "worshipped." Attributing divinity and specialness to certain humans but not others is a slippery path which desensitizes us to tyranny and allows for the hateful mullahs and popes and all the rest of the religious rabble who claim to speak from some special tyrannical authority from on high, instead of from persuasion and reason.
All that said, again, I respect yours or anyone's personal thoughts. If you want to bow down to a green tomato in your own house and predict that one day that green tomato will come flying through the heavens and rapturize people, so be it. But I hope you can understand that in a pluralistic world, many of us have very different faiths about how spirituality and creation and all the rest work, and the most sensible course of action seems to be to respect all faiths.
Take the Moslems and their "infidel" epithet, for example. Poll after poll consistently shows that 96% of the American people believe in God. You would think reasonable people could rejoice in the things they have in common (God) than always fighting over the minutae (whose prophet is the "right" one?)
Denying global warming because your religion makes you think, through faith instead of evidence, that the world is only 14,000 years old is like standing in front of a speeding car and daring it to hit you. The philosopher David Hume tried that with a horse, got clobbered, and realized that reality is actually, in fact, real, and it hurts! Reason is not at all incompatible with faith, but a supplantation of reason by faith is ludicrous and ultimately, evil and tyrannical, leading to concepts like, "Because I believe watching soccer on TV is un-Islamic, I'm going to kill you. Never mind what YOU believe."
It's easy enough for a non-Christian Deist like me (I love God - I hate religion) to denounce guys like this fellow in Washington State. But I really think it is incumbent on the religious who are not "nuts," as you characterize yourself, to do a better job at shouting him down. If the non-tyrannical Christians, Moslems, Jews etcetera don't start stepping up and putting the nut/fascist types of religious folk down, then all that we godly albeit non-religious folk will be able to conclude is that you stand with them, too. If the world needs anything returned or supplanted, it is the replacement of religious nuts by the "normal" religious. Is there such a thing any more, in 2006? Or are you all fascists?
"Condoms don't belong in school, and neither does Al Gore."
Use in the following way:
"X doesn't belong in Y, and neither does Al Gore."
Examples:
"Cheese don't belong in hot dogs, and neither does Al Gore."
"Riker doesn't belong in the captain's chair, and neither does Al Gore."
*Note that verb tense can be changed at the leisure of the poster.
Here's to hoping that this one spreads better than the "Except in Nebraska" one of Steve Ballmer fame.
The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster has evidence that global warming is actually caused by the shrinking number of pirates since 1800. I feel that students should be made aware of this in their science classes and encouraged to think about becoming pirates to aid the situation.
I think you're missing the point. The issue at hand is that EVERY SINGLE EXAMINATION of ANY TOPIC could now be banned from schools unless equal time, money, and attention is given to "it's like that because that's the way God made it".
Welcome back to the Dark Ages, America.
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PGP Key ID 0xCB8FF658
Debating the issues only works after people have been taught to think critically, and the fundamental problem with these fundamentalists is that they're trying to prevent that from happening in the first place.
The problem isn't in saying that "global warming is only a theory;" the problem is elevating the words of the Bible to the same status. Whatever the Bible says is not a theory no matter how much someone might believe in it, because it's not scientific.
Let me put it this way: the whole point of science is to teach skepticism, systematic investigation, and logic. When these assholes try to tell kids that the Bible has the same status as scientific theories, they're making a direct attack on those principles. Skepticism is not faith, investigation is not dogma, and logic is not irrationality, yet these people are trying to damage the children by brainwashing them into confusing the two!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
"only a theory"...
All science ever can be is "just" theories. Some moron will always say that something is "only" a theory and expect that means its probably wrong. Yes atomic theory is "just" a theory, therefore nuclear bombs don't exist. Medical knowledge is all just "guess'" about what people see, medicine must be the hand of god otherwise it wouldn't work. No reputable scientist will back up the last 2 claims but i used to same lines of logic that lead people to believe that global warming does not exist.
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
On the other hand, apart from your post I also agree with Richard Dawkins' line of thought that moderate christians are those that allow fundamentalist to exist by supplying the ideological background.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Latin is just a theory.
Wrong, and your statement itself is ad hominem. Go read the definition, please. Example, from wikipedia:
"An ad hominem argument, also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin: "argument to the person", "argument against the man") is a logical fallacy consisting of replying to an argument by attacking or appealing to the person making the argument, rather than by addressing the substance of the argument."
Any time your retort's subject matter is your opponent in the debate, that is ad hominem.
Ahhh, but in this case, it wasn't the person that was being attacked. It was a filter that that person had chosen to apply to their perception with demonstrable effects on his ability to draw logical conclusions *in certain situations* which was being attacked.
His stated belief that the earth is 14,000 years old demonstrates this filter applied to his ability to deal with many sciences such as geology, paleontology, etc.
Therefore, his chosen belief system does have a bearing "on his own ability to objectively evaluate the evidence concerning global warming," as the OP said, since that evidence is science-based as well.
That's a perfectly valid argument.
I agree that we need to be better at pointing out that fundamentalists are still at the crude basics of the faith and often completely misunderstand important things. Having them as the figureheads of their religions is like having a kindergardener setup your college curriculum.
We are all just people.
The word you are looking for is Hypothesis. That's when it's well reasoned but not thoroughly analyzed. Lower than that you have hunches and guesses. Where it just seems like it could make sense but you haven't worked out the details yet. Above Ordinary theories are "Natural Laws". Those are the theories that have been analyzed to death and tested extensively and still hold up. Newton's Law of Gravity is such a theory.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
The fact that the parent is modded "Funny" gives me kind of an uneasy feeling, as it is closer to the truth than you'd think. For example, in some countries (I know Sweden is one) kids are given comprehensive sex education, unlike the US. They receive much less biased and much more complete information on things like condoms, STDs, and all the other info young adults need in order to make informed, safe choices about sex. They also start sex ed much earlier, I believe at 7 or 8 years old.
Since most Slashdotters are US'ian, compare this with the mandatory public-school "sex" "education" classes you took. Then compare statistics like "teen pregnancy" and "age that kids start having sex". In countries with comprehensive sex education, there is less teen pregnancy, and kids start having sex later[1].
[1] "The Naked Truth About Sex", Dr. Roger W. Libby (2006)
There is nothing at all wrong with showing political films in school so long as your students are not being indoctrinated via presenting the film as fact. I welcome discussion of global warming even though as of now I haven't been shown (though I admit to not having looked in detail for a while now) evidence that convinces me that global warming is and issue or that humans are the cause of it. The key (as with evolution vs creation) is teaching the children to be critical thinkers and giving them the skills to take information from various sources and weigh and measure it before synthesizing it into thier view of reality. If more people were capable of this many of the silly yet world shaking arguments would melt away.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
Global warming is a lot weaker than the examples you cited though, because we have can't repeat a lab experiment that involves earth, there's no controlled environment, no control group. Models are made based on historic data that may or may not be representative for future data. There's been plenty examples of formulas that have closely followed a system for a shorter time, but turns out to be spurious, or limited in some way.
One of the key questions should be whether we're actually damaging the planet - or if we're just temporarily throwing the curve a little of, mostly creating problems for ourselves. I mean, we know there's been ice ages and warm periods before, are we just doing in a century what'd normally take a few thousand years or are we fundamentally screwing with Earth's ecosystem and risk breaking the whole thing?
Take a look at the 500mio year perspective
Then the closer picture 65mio year perspective
Then the closer picture 5mio year perspective
Then the closer picture 450k year perspective
Then the closer picture 12k year perspective
Then the closer picture 2000 year perspective
Then the closer picture 150 year perspective
Yes, if you look at the last graph it looks like it's going up, up and away. In fact, as far back as the last ice age it'll seem that way. Then you start looking at the big picture - earth has been getting colder on the 450k graph, the 5mio graph, the 65mio graph and the 500mio graph. Earth was much warmer than it's likely to be even with global warming about 120000 years ago. And historicly, earth has been a much warmer place than that again. Yes, I'm sure we'll create a big fuzz over global warming, but I don't see it showing up as more than a blip in the ecosystem.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
What really concerns me is that schools AVOID controversy. Think about that. The place we send our children to in order to become knowledgeable enough to integrate with society and contribute to our pool of knowledge (Or at least, this is the supposed ideal. The execution and goals of specific individuals within may vary). And they do what they can to AVOID subjects kids may have disagree with?
Am I the only one here who thinks this is a good thing for kids to see, whether or not you AGREE with Mr. Gore? How about watching it... and then forming an opinion? Or is that a skill we're no longer supposed to possess?
How about dissecting the movie? Taking classes to identify facts, identify opinion, where people may be just guessing, where people are just trying to sway your opinion, and so on?
Personally, on Global Warming, I'm rather neutral. I don't feel that I know enough to form a truly educated opinion. However, I do think that pouring poisonous chemicals non-stop into the atmosphere we breathe isn't very likely to have many "beneficial" side-effects, regardless of whether or not it's contributing/contributing a lot to global warming.
Sorry if this sounded inflammatory, but I'm just rather irritated that the U.S. (from my experience) is doing the best it can to avoid hearing conflicting opinions. "Freedom from offensive or disagreeing speech" is not a Constitutional Right, and I'm sick of people having their lawyers on speed dial for every instance someone decides to bring up unpopular/unorthodox/taboo ideas.
On the subject of climate change we are in a different level of argument. You see the Earth's temperature is anything but stable. History suggests that in recent times our planet has been much colder than it is now and at other times much warmer.
Ever wondered why the icecaps are littered with Mammoth and Sabertooth corpses but not a single dinosaur? The formed long after those creatures were extinct.
What is in dispute however is:
1. Is the Earth warming up too fast. I.e. Will this trigger an effect outside the normal cycle.
2. What effect is that? Will we go into a Greenhouse spiral and become a humid furnace like Venus? or breakup the icecaps so that when they reform the planet plunges into a freeze cycle and becomes a virtual snowball with no summer.
3. Is the current warming cycle being hurried along by humans?
BTW: Ever notice how really ancient cities are mostly inland while recent constructions are mostly on the coast?
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
So, he's against teaching kids about safe sex, and quite obviously doesn't use it himself. He's also obviously some kind of literalist Christian. I mean, no self-respecting science journal would EVER claim the Earth was 14,000 years old. We Humans have been around a lot longer than that (despite being no more than a mere blip on the time line of the Earth), and we have skeletal remains, carbon dating, sedimentary layers, etc. etc. etc. to back it up. Unless just about every form of archeology is ridiculously wrong in every conceivable way (or you go with that "God put that there to trick us" logic, which is a whole other can of worms), there is no way in Hell that can be right.
So, why is it that a man who is obviously not very well versed in the realms of science trying to have so much say in what takes place in a science class?
> Yes, I'm sure we'll create a big fuzz over global warming, but I don't see it showing up as more than a blip in the ecosystem
but then so are we as a species. so maybe it's in our best interest to keep what you're calling the blip in a stable equilibrium unless you want us all to go extinct and wait till the next ice age to roll around for it to then get just warm enough for our survival to be possible again. i'm all for stabilizing the environment, if possible, regardless of weather or not it's part of some grand design that make the earth go through hot-flashes and chills cycle as if it were menopausal.
how about you?
Falsifiability is the measure of a sound theory.
But this probably needs to be looked at in the right context.
The point of a theory is to allow you to predict future results, based first on the current state of the universe, and future actions.
Falsifiability is what makes a sound theory; what this means is that you can predict something using it, and then measure the results of an experiment based on that prediction, and decide categorically, based on the outcome of the experiment, whether the theory is true or false. If it's false, then it's no longer a theory, and we throw it away -- or, if it still gives useful approximations, like Newtonian mechanisc, then we keep it around, but constrain the circumstances in which it should be used as a tool.
Any theory that's not falsifiable is not a theory - it's a hypothesis at best, and at worst, it's a conjecture.
So, for example, creationism isn't a sound theory, and it's not even a reasonable hypothesis, since it's not falsifiable. To falsify it, you would have to be able to come up with a repeatable laboratory experiment that could prove, one way or the other, whether or not there is a creator. Since the conjecture that there's a creator is a tautology, it's impossible to do this. So the next best thing is Occam's Razor, which, to paraphrase into plain English, states that "All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the best one".
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Global warming, at this point, is a theory (based on observation, without contradiction), but it's not a very good one. It's falsifiable, but not in our lifetimes, and not under laboratory conditions.
Human activity being the root cause of the currently observed global warming is, at this point, a hypothesis.
And the movies idea of what will happen if human activity continues in the current direction is merely conjecture.
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So to get back to your question: the more ways, and the easier, and the more controlled the conditions under which you can falsify a theory, the higher the quality of the theory.
As to soundness of a particular thory, the more ways that can (and have been attempted to) falsify it, and failed to do so, the more sound the theory.
-- Terry
Your logic appears to be "Some scientists were wrong once, therefore all scientists are always wrong about everything - especially global warming."
But actually, it's a myth that scientists in the 1970s predicted an ice age
"3) Skeptics must be heard and not shouted down and ridiculed."
This is the real important one right here. Science is not an absolute, it's not a religion, it's not a case of "This is right and there shall be no questions." Science is a process of knowing about the natural world and, by it's nature, there must always be the possibility that you are wrong, your hypothesis must be falsifiable. If it's not, it's not science (that's why Creationism isn't science).
Science class should teach that. Students should be taught to think critically, to understand that science changes and grows and that we probably don't live in the magic time when we have all the right answers. For example I remember in high school chemistry we learned about the structure of the atom. However it wasn't a "This is how atoms are," kind of thing, it was an explanation of how the theory had developed and changed. We started off Dalton model (tiny indivisible spheres) and moved on up to the then current theory of electron probability clouds. We learned a little of quantum theory and were made to understand that while we are pretty sure of this stuff, we don't know that we won't have a better understanding of atoms in the future.
This is why global warming raises such an alarm bell with me, because it never seems to be presented in this way. People trumpet it as something of which there is NO DOUBT, a fact, not a theory (it is a theory, so is how gravity works, and so on). If you question it you are stupid, or an industry shill, or ignoring the issue, and so on. That doesn't sound like science to me, that sounds like religion. Something you are supposed to accept on faith, and never question, lest you be branded a heretic.
So while I certainly want global warming, or rather general climate change, theory taught to students, I don't want it handed down as something to which there can be no debate because there IS debate. I want students shown the different arguments, especially when people analyze the same data and come to different conclusions. I want them to learn about computer modeling, its uses and its limitations. Basically I want them to come out with a better understanding of how science is done and the information surrounding the GW debate, not with a set of statements presented as dogma.
Due to the volume of interest in this matter I am using auto-reply to get
you the quickest reply possible because your concerns about what we did
are important. I write this intending to express my own views and not the
views of other board members. I will not be replying to your replies.
Some of the media has not reported this matter accurately and I wanted to
make sure the issues and our decision were clear to you. Feel free to
share this with others who are concerned.
1. We did not make the decision based upon Mr. Hardison's religious or
other beliefs. The decision was made because a teacher was going to show
the movie and it did not appear she was following policy. It turned out
that she was not following policy. There was also an offer last week by
the proponents of the movie to give 50,000 copies to teachers across the
country to use as curriculum, which would have increased the chance that
the movie would be used. There was more than one complaint/concern
expressed about this issue based upon that alone.
2. We did not ban or censor the movie and have no intent to do so.
Teachers can use it as they see fit if they follow policy on movies and
controversial issues, but because there was some misunderstanding on the
policy we asked that the Superintendent be involved in making sure policy
was being followed. One of our high schools has already used the movie.
The students were asked to take a side, research the issues, and then
debate the issues from that standpoint. What they did goes above and
beyond the policy in my opinion.
3. We are not banning the teaching of global warming.
4. The debate on global warming is crucial to society and limiting the
debate to only one side's view of the facts and science would not be good
for anyone even if they believe the debate is over.
5. Our policies are designed to make sure that the door is open for more
debate on issues, not less, but it does not mean as some allege that any
wacko theory can be taught in our schools.
6. The decision was made upon existing policy. It was not based on
anyone's direct belief regarding politics, science, religion, or when the
earth was formed or when it will end.
7. Policy 2331 and 2331P is intended to prevent one-sided views of
controversial issues.
8. There was more than one complaint/concern expressed about this issue.
9. The policy should be equally enforced regardless of what side of the
spectrum any controversial issue falls upon. This protects the integrity
of the education process. We would have made the same decision if the
movie was about the Iraq war or some other issue and was narrated by
George W. Bush or some other partisan, even if the proponents felt the
debate was over on the topic they were presenting.
10. Using a partisan to present issues affecting contested public policy
matters makes it controversial per se. The media attention to our
decision is also evidence of the controversial nature of this film.
11. Science and politics have been merged on this issue by persons beyond
our control. The political aspect of this is what makes it the most
controversial, especially when a political partisan makes the
presentation. With that in mind, there are many other ways to teach
global warming instead of using a feature film by a political partisan
(see links below from NOAA and NASA that have references to skeptics), but
despite that we did not vote to "ban" the movie even though we could have.
We also had the power to compel specific sources be used instead of the
movie and did not do that either. Some have raised the issue of us not
watching the movie first, but we did not ban the movie or that would have
been crucial. We did feel it was controversial based upon the above
reasons which is all we needed to know based upon our policy.
12. On the issue of how final the debate is, Galileo and other out of the
box thinkers com
"I love deadlines. I love the "whooshing" sound they make as they pass by." - Douglas Adams.
The solution is not to ban books and films - but to teach students critical thinking, and media analysis skills. Such classes in media literacy and criticism are standard practice in many schools around the world. Why are they so unpopular in the US? Is it because we want people to consume media at face value to perpetuate the media consumption empires? Or is it because we want students to uncritically believe everything that the administration says on TV?
Sheltering students from the real world of opinions in the media is not a smart move. And on the scale of "propaganda," An Inconvenient Truth is pretty mild stuff. Sure it has opinion, and it also has science. But it's pretty clear that the opinion is opinion. Kids probably get worse propaganda from the dairy industry in their nutrition/home economics classes. Or from the IT industry in computer classes.
But why ban this, instead of having a healthy debate about it?
... and then they built the supercollider.
No scientist was predicting "freezing to death", nor were any peer-reviewed journals publishing articles to this effect. The "1970's prediction of an iceage" myth is based on two media articles by National Geographic and Newsweek where the journalists got their science wrong (more so in Newsweek.)
a better explination is here
This is myth is keept alive by the likes of George Will (a fairly respectable conservative on most other topics) and that "expert" Michael Crichton. The only thing close was the discovery in the 1970's of teperature variations with a periodicity of 20000 years. Well below the time scale of anthropogenic warming (on order of decades to 100s of years.)
"You saved 1968." - Ms. Valerie Pringle to the crew of Apollo 8
Relativity is "just a theory" as well, but your GPS system would fail totally if both the special and general theories of relativity were not taken into account. Too many laymen think that "theory" means "tentative hypothesis" when in fact many theories are about as well established as any claim about the physical world could possibly be.
Isn't this usually called consensus science? Hence peer-review, etc. etc? Last I checked the overwhelming majority, no wait, the entire scientific community is in agreement on "global warming". Read this as 2,500+ scientists from over 130 countries agreeing over the basis of the IPCC. Note that the opposition is comprised of a lot of the same crack team of "scientists" that defended the tobacco industry in the '70s. Their integrity notwithstanding, their arguments are still just about as transparent as their lives.
So what does the IPCC say? Let's paraphrase it: CO2 is related to warming of the temperatures, humans are causing this, and that we ought to do something about it because we can. Oh, and btw, warming is Not a Good Thing(tm), especially at the rate with which we're inducing it.
On a more philosophical note, I think you struck a cord with me on the shaman quib. I've recently been interested in Richard Dawkins and his arguments on religion. In my travels I found that his philosophy and reasoning fairly sound, but that something was possibly lacking in what he suggested we ought to do: if religion isn't responsible for what we believe, who or what is? Surely someone will say, "Science! Duh..." It sounds good, but is wrong because science isn't about belief (Or is it?). Or perhaps someone will suggest that each person be his own judge for truth. This is closer to a good answer, but rather impractical. How exactly should everyone be informed of everything such that they can always make the correct judgments on truth? If I tried to discern all truth on my own with no help or instruction of what others think or how they did it, I wouldn't get much done in a day. Nor would I ever learn much.
We are limited information processing machines, hence the convenience and necessity of "beliefs". This leads me back to the beginning: how do we know what to believe in when we're ignorant? Consensus science. Sure, it's failed a couple times here and there (Galileo, Copernicus, etc.), but for the vast majority progress within science the consensus works just fine. And that is why I believe the understated findings of the IPCC.
Agreed.
I'm fascinated when I read headline stories about GW.
"2006 was the warmest year in 1000 years".
Either (1) They stopped looking after 1000 years, which is bad science in a billion-year cyclic environment, or (2) 1000 years ago, it was hotter.
We find other screwups, as well. A few months ago, there was a front page story about GW. The Big Scientist being quoted mentioned several things in it, but appears to have not considered what he was saying. For example, he mentions coldness, and how there was a "mini ice age" from about 1400AD to 1700AD. Eight paragraphs later, he says we've now got the hottest weather seen in 400 years.
Math 101: 2000 - 400 = 1600. The dead peak of that mini ice age. Either they knowingly compared the temperatures to exactly a *very short* period *they* say was a "cold spell", stopped looking, and were *astonished* to find a heat increase. Or, in the peak of that self-termed "mini ice age", it was hotter.
Huh?
Finally, noone seems to really pay attention to the impact of ocean currents on atmospheric heat... they all seem to think that atmosphere is the only factor. 700 calories per gram comes out of the ocean when it evaporates, and 700 calories per gram goes into the atmosphere when it condenses.
Hot equatorial water flows along the surface to the north pole, and evaporates along the way. Cold water at the pole is displaced by the warm current, sinks, and returns to the equator as an undercurrent.
As the hot water travels north - when it evaporates, that heat came from the equator. When it condenses, that heat is absorbed by the atmosphere - it effectively "carries" equatorial heat northward.
But, the polar ice caps melt. Ice caps are freshwater. Freshwater floats on salt water. Fresh water at the poles... pushes south, forcing the warm equatorial water under. With the warm water buried, it doesn't evaporate; the cold water is what's exposed. The evaporation rate goes down as a result. The fresh water layer will mix with the seawater, but it'll still be less dense... and be cold, and float. Atmospheric temperature gets fewer grams of evaporation, obviously. I don't recall the specific capacity of the impact, but a temperature drop of "20 degrees F" sticks in my head, as was demanded in the 60s by some guy who was studying beetles, as was dictated by the dominant types of beetles he found at various depths. (The beetle guy was a facinating story - the color of the dominant beetle's shell can often tell you the temperature of a given year, to within 2 degrees?!) He released his findings, back then, as was pretty much laughed out of a job.
His story stayed buried for 30 years, until some oceanographer chanced upon it while working... go figure... on currents at the equator. He'd also recently seen something about a polar core sample, taken above canada, that indicated severe temperature drops over short terms. He contacted the beetle guy, and the ice core guy, and compared their details. The dates of the ice-core guy and the beetle guy were pretty much the same for all of the extreme temperature shifts. He focused on the biggest shift they found, which was (as I recall) about 20 degrees F.
So, he dug deeper. He found out about some giant freshwater lake that existed at the pole some zillion years ago, and how it had supposedly melted its way into the ocean in a giant flood of freshwater. The date was the same as the temperature drop.
And he applied this lake idea to what he was studying, and it made sense - there's a big "heat conveyor" in the Atlantic. Freshwater floats on seawater. Freshwater at the pole would head south. Freshwater would displace the warm seawater underneath, and effectively push the northern end-point of the conveyor southward. Points that are north of the conveyor no longer get heat from it, to the tune of up to a 20 degree F drop... in literally a couple of years. It can likewise increase that much, just as fast.
So, if the beetle guy's study has any merit (and it do
help me i've cloned myself and can't remember which one I am
Either (1) They stopped looking after 1000 years, which is bad science in a billion-year cyclic environment, or (2) 1000 years ago, it was hotter. That's a simplistic assessment. First, due to fluctuations in temperature, there can be years which are unusually hot, but what is more important is what the climate trend is doing. Second, of course there are periods of time in the Earth's past that were hotter than it is today — try the Cretaceous. But it didn't get that way all of a sudden — that's why it's more relevant to compare the climate today to what the climate was doing relatively recently, not to what it was doing at some random time in the past. The issue with global warming is that there is a unprecedentedly sudden and high rate of warming which coincides in both timing and magnitude with industrial emissions of greenhouse gases. That warming is not because some billion-year cycle just happened to be due right now, and in fact the paleoclimate record does not imply that we are in for natural climate change that looks anything like what's happening now. Finally, noone seems to really pay attention to the impact of ocean currents on atmospheric heat... they all seem to think that atmosphere is the only factor. You are joking, right? There is a huge industry of oceanic climatologists. Ever hear of an "atmosphere-ocean general circulation model" (AOGCM)? Namely... the impact of the Atlantic Conveyor on atmospheric heat, and the impact of freshwater on the Atlantic Conveyor. Uh... that is a huge industry in climatology too. See the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation. A shutdown of the Atlantic Conveyor is thought to be responsible for the last ice age (the Younger Dryas. You may also recall a (greatly exaggerated) movie on the topic a few years back: "The Day After Tomorrow".