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Is Climate Change the New Evolution?
sciencehabit writes "Is climate change education the new evolution, threatened in U.S. school districts and state education standards by well-organized interest groups? A growing number of education advocates believe so, and yesterday, the National Center for Science Education in Oakland, California, which fights the teaching of creationism, announced that it's going to take on climate change denial as well."
I thought one of the fundamental aspects of modern empirical science is that, unlike a religion, it is ALWAYS open to revision and dispute. That's the whole point of the scientific method. Whether there is a significant modern consensus or not, I think it goes against the core spirit of scientific inquiry to EVER say "This matter is settled and no future scientist may ever question it." That's the very kind of anti-empirical position the Creationists themselves take in presenting their religious take on science.
And I'm certainly glad for Einstein's sake that no one ever thought this way about Newtonian physics. "Sorry little German, the matter is settled. Stop being a Newton denier."
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Humanity is not going to give up modern convenience for something that will effect future generations.
NCSC is run by a weirdo named Eugenie Scott. Pretends to be pro-science, but she's just pro-Eugenie. They're a tiny little nothing of an organization. Who cares.
We should not allow anybody to teach anything that some parent does not agree with, and if we do we should always provide a "balanced" view of all sides. In every class no matter what. That way students can spend their entire school time on the first subject they encounter and never be able to move past it. That is how real science is done. Oh yeah, and we should also test the bejeebers out them to make sure that they understand it. Kids are so stuupid these dayz.
No.
If the science for climate change continues to pan out for another fifty or hundred years, then maybe those people denying it can be classified as cranks. Right now, though, it's ridiculous to claim that climate change is as well established as evolution. That's insulting to the theory of evolution.
It's an ice age! It's warming! It's change! It's not quite the new ethereal soup, that's dark matter.
I am still fairly skeptical about climate change. Make no mistake, though - moderate skeptics like myself are NOT the ones arguing against the teaching of climate change in schools at the national, non-internet-commentator level. Oil companies (and related industries) have a LOT to lose if the next generation sees climate change as a real thing. Moves like this are not based on science as much as they are on the cash flow that follows peoples' opinions.
Should any school base its curriculum on the output of software simulations?
Unless you're an AGW cultist and/or really big Madden fan, the answer is "Of course not. Software models are not science."
global warming IS religion
In creationism vs. evolution it is a war between religious zealots and scientists. In climate change it is the same war only the religious zealots are the climate change fanatics.
Yes
Anti-Evolution
Anti-Global Warming
Anti-Round Earth Theory
The Triple Play of Ignorance!!
Isnt denying that the huge-scale human intervention/activity on the planet - which goes from releasing boundless amount of heat to atmosphere to releasing radioactive substances to sea - can NOT have an effect that is considerable, as stupid as denying that the earth is older than 6000 years ?
one has the motive to control the masses by some private interests behind, the other has the motive to control the masses to protect profits.
Read radical news here
Climate change need not be taught until it is as well established as Evolution. Period! Speaking of evolution... You gotta love The Simpsons take on it. But seriously, the real issue is whether or not global warming is more of a natural vs a man-made process.
gasmonso
A massive MAJORITY of world governments, corporations, scientists, leaders, and intellectuals in the world recognize that man made climate change is the number one challenge the human species faces this century. Climate change affects TWO of the top Human requirements on this Earth, Food production, and access to drinking water. Without a constant supply of either of these, misery will prevail.
You may continue to call yourself a 'moderate skeptic', but don't fool your self into thinking it is by any measure an intelligent choice.
Thank you nutcases, for under undermining America science education! Since after enjoying the 200 years of prosperity, economic and military might that science has provided to the USA, it is very generous they now start undermining it, by insuring that future generations don't properly learn that pesky science, so that many other countries can advance and overtake the USA.
If I was a Chinese official, I would be actively funding the National Center for Science Education, since they are the ones that benefit most from American stupidity.
Hopefully the National Center for Science Education can now start attacking math, since transfinite numbers and arithmetic can be use to justify that there are infinities bigger than god:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfinite_number
Is it so much easy to teach kids that 1+1 = whatever god tells them. Welcome to the new American Taliban.
So is anthropomorphic climate change when you blame it on Mother Earth or Old Man Winter?
What bothers me most about the controversy over climate change, is even if it turns out human actions don't actually have a significant impact on climate, we damn well know we affect the environment. We also know fossil fuels won't last us forever and acquiring them is becoming increasingly volatile due to who does and does not have access to their source. So sure, we should be cautious and treat climate science as we would any other science where we need a critical eye, but we need to be taking the same actions regardless of the conclusions (due to our knowledge of other affects). How is reducing pollution and non-renewable resource consumption a bad thing? Who the hell honestly thinks unregulated energy consumption and dumping of various emissions is okay?
The VAST majority of experts in the field believe AGCC is real. They might be wrong, but the burden falls fully on the critics (deniers) at this point. It is now an "extraordinary claim" to say that AGCC is false to any significant degree, and "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
Yes, it is possible that the few vocal critics are correct; if so, please pony up the extraordinary evidence to support your extraordinary claim so we may be convinced.
The climate science debate has two important components to it. This issue focuses on one component, and that is the anti-science attack on climate science. This has the same source of ignorance and zealotry that has challenged teaching evolution in the classroom. This is a stand of religious based ignorance against science. I have not met anyone who understands the scientific process who challenges the theory of evolution. I am using the scientific definition of theory, which is an operating model, and not the "theory is not a fact" arguement that my religious friends pick up.
The second component to climate science is that there are some great issues of modern science and society that can be taught here. To not teach this in the classroom is missing out on a real opportunity to teach critical thinking that children can get passionate about.
You can teach about data collection, and how this can be a source for controversy.
You can teach about computer modeling and statistical analysis. What these tools are great for, and where they fall short.
Plenty to teach about weather vs. climate, and what the climate means for other systems on the planet.
Lab experiements on basic components of the atmosphere, and why they don't always translate to the actual model of the world.
You can teach the ethics of how to prioritze science against society and economic concerns.
Lots more stuff that I am not getting in to.
My point being, this is another area where zealotry is screwing up a great opportunity to train the next generation of scientists.
For **** sake, of course climate is changing. Its normal. You know what would not be normal? If climate would stop changing.
Climate Science wishes it was as well rooted as evolution and genetics. Climate Science has the worst reputation for fraud and politicization of any science. It is richly deserved. Misery loves company. Climate activists should look to cold fusion science or Big Foot hunters as a peers.
an ill wind that blows no good
Science works by what can be empirically proven. When you've got experimental proof, it doesn't matter what the "consensus" is.
Models are not empirical proof. Models are just software.
Please do some basic research on government and corporate initiatives around the world, they all realize what is happening and have plans to adapt to the changing planet. Why do you think China is investing so much in battery technology? What about massive investment in wind and solar power? I suppose an ignoramus such as yourself would write off such long term efforts as conspiracies.... wouldn't you? It's ok to admit it, being aware of your failings is the first step to correcting them.
The reason climate science is open to this kind of attack is that climate scientists have done a reasonable job of getting the public to understand at least the basic points of the argument. Other fields, like say relativity, would be under more attack if the general population understood them better. Perhaps scientists won't say how a magnet works because they want to preserve some areas of science for future generations.
Nullius in verba
This is the nonsense, it was called the weather, this is just an excuse to setup another stock market trading carbon credits, Al Gore is laughing all the way to the bank. As the Brits would say, this is all rubbish. Anyone who believes that temperatures stay the same on such a complex life form called the earth are fooling themselves.
Oh noes its hot! Oh noes its cold! Back in my day they were called seasons.
You're arguing for ignorance. It's like denying that gravity doesn't exist just because some people can't understand how it operates. No sane person denies evolution in the world today, except for fundamentalist, semi-literate, buffoons. You are again speaking from a position of ignorance, I would pity you if it weren't so pathetic.
Do you understand the Peer Review process, or are you obfuscating from a position of faith or economic interest?
Check your premises.
Of course, if you understand even the very basics of computing, you realize that "software simulations" are just a relatively quick way of making very difficult calculations. If you have a problem with a model, attack the model (of course, that would require researching the subject a bit before being able to make bold accusations) but complaining about computers being used to take care of complex is incredibly stupid. I hope you also oppose all modern astronomy as most of the data is crunched by "computer simulations".
The problem is that people seem to conflate the science, facts, and the politics of climate change. They think if you disagree with any part, you are a "denialist". So what do I mean?
Well first take the fact of climate change: That the average global temperature is changing outside of known cycles. Provided the data on which this is being based, this is true. It is a fact, a simple observation about the world.
Then there's the theory of climate change: That this change is being cause either primarily or exclusively by carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, as a result of human emissions. This is a theory, it provides a logical proposal to explain the facts. Like any theory it could be subject to revision or dismissal later should more information come to light. Doesn't mean it will be, but it can (if it isn't falsifiable, it isn't a scientific theory).
Now after that you get some additional theories like the theory that this will be a net bad thing for humanity. Remember that this is not a fact, it is a theory, and that the overall theory of CO2 causing climate change could be right, and this could be wrong. As such one could reasonably examine the evidence and accept the first theory and reject the second.
Then you get in to politics or policies: That the only thing to do about it is to massively reduce CO2 output, institute carbon taxes, etc, etc. That isn't a scientific theory there, it is politics. There are other solutions that would work. One example would simply be to prepare for the chance and deal with it. You could argue that even if this particular change is human caused, in the future a change will happen that isn't, so better to spend resources on becoming resilient to change than trying to avoid this one. Geoengineering would be another approach to dealing with it. Different policies can be debated, the costs, the benefits, and so on, there is no one right answer here, there are options.
However if you disagree with any part, you get labeled a denalist. So you can say "I think the Earth is getting warmer, and I think manmade CO2 is the cause. However my examination of the evidence leads me to believe it is not a bad thing, in fact it'll be just fine so we shouldn't do anything," and you get shouted down as "denying climate change." Or you can say "I think it is happening, manmade, and a bad thing. However I think reducing CO2 production is the wrong approach. I think we should do geoengineering because it is cheaper/more effective/etc," and you get shouted down as a "denialist."
That's my real problem, is people confuse the levels of it. There are facts (all scientific theories have to start with facts, observations), theories, and then policy suggestions as a result. Calling it all bullshit can be accurately called denying it. However being skeptical or disagreeing with parts cannot.
Also there's way too much stock put in computer models. Not that they are used, but that people think they "prove" something. No, a computer model proves nothing, it is a model. It makes predictions. If the predictions are repeatedly accurate, it is probably a good model of reality and can be counted on to produce accurate predictions in the future. If they are inaccurate, it needs to be revised. However it doesn't "prove" shit. It models.
So while models should (and must) be used in climate research, people need to stop saying things like "This model proves that X will happen in Y years!" No, it predicts it. Well and good, that's very different from proving it.
Nope, sorry alarmists, but Catastrophic Climate Change is not supported by anywhere near the level of evidence that Evolution is.
The United States is pretty much the only country out there with a significant population that continues to deny Climate Change. Ok, Canada has some issues as well (they have a religious conservative government at the moment), but it is quite difficult to find any other developed country out there that denies the mountain of evidence before us all. It would seem many Americans would deny that the sun is shining, even if they were standing right under it sweating like a pig in the middle of a desert, all for the sake of some twisted demagoguery.
For certain values of "real issue".
http://www.skepticalscience.com/How-we-know-were-causing-global-warming-in-single-graphic.html
Parent AC here.
>When you've got experimental proof
You need a consensus of experts to agree as to what constitutes valid experimental proof. Consider Pons and Fleischmann: they had been highly regarded in their field and thought they had experimental proof. Other people evaluated and found their work seriously lacking. For AGCC: lots of scientific eyes have looked at the problem and said "yes, this looks like pretty good evidence." That's science. Remember that science doesn't produce "TRUTH", it produces "truth." AGCC might well prove incorrect, but again, at this point the burden is on the critics.
Is climate change education the new evolution, threatened in U.S. school districts and state education standards by well-organized interest groups?
Joke (a bitter one, though): during a presentation of a list of all the benefits to the earth and society of moving to renewable energy, at a 'Climate Summit' conference a person in the audience stands up and asks "What if it's a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing?"
Follow the money?
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
And I'm not talking about the political controversy. I mean, in some sense evolution is _the_ central concept behind biology, a major branch of science: it's what lets you ask "Why?" instead of just "What?" or "How?" and students really need to learn it deeply and well.
Climate change may become central to public policy in the years to come, but the science involved is in no way central to a traditional science curriculum, or even sufficiently accessible that its importance to policy makes it reasonable to cover. Sure, it'd probably be more helpful to learn about climate change than some of the topics we studied in my 8th grade "Earth Science" class (memorizing the names of _constellations_? seriously?), but that's more of a reflection on how bad middle school science education (and middle school education in general) is than an endorsement of climate change.
As a society, we have come across a phenomenon that we're not sure about. Is the world temperature rising, and the problem man made; or, is this just another cycle of the world as is? We don't definitively know the answer to that question, but I lean towards the side of caution. Rational thought leads me to believe that we are causing the Earth to have a significantly higher percentage of CO2 in the air than there was previously: we are cutting down trees and polluting water that has in the past filtered out the CO2, while at the same time putting an increasing amount of CO2 in the air with our increasing industrialization worldwide. Even if this turns out to not be the case, and we're not causing any problems, what is the harm in slowing down our pollution and thinking rationally about our future as a race? The whole fight between the people who believe in Climate Change and the people who don't is childish. Take a few years, and figure out what's going on. This is something that the whole world is discussing, yet it seems that America is the only country making a big stink about it. Think about people first, and money later, then we can finally solve real problems.
A bunch of people deny that evolution exists. Very few people deny that the climate changes, and their wacky 'Hockey Stick' graphs have been thoroughly disproven.
Welcome - ta them U nighted Statz of Jeazouz Land!
As someone working in this field, I would just like to make some clarifications. The term 'Climate Change' is better viewed as two separate questions: is climate change occurring, and if so, is it due to human influence? The first question is effectively settled; temperatures are increasing and extreme weather events are occurring more frequently. The second question is more complex, although the vast scientific consensus is that it is indeed due to human influence. In particular, the greenhouse effect has been conclusively proven. The slightly-informed seem to misinterpret scientific uncertainty (a very specific term referring to statistical probabilities) with a much more general 'scientists aren't sure if this is true or not'.
It is true that there is a long way to go in climate science. However, this is no reason not to teach it in schools. There are many unknowns in the science (as with any field of science); these should not be understated, but neither should they be overstated - it would not be helpful for teachers to spread yet more excessive doubt. Finally, it is of particular importance that climate science is taught in school - the consequences of climate change are likely to be extremely grave for mankind and will impact the next generation much more than this one.
I take it you never realized that "Bullshit" is carefully crafted libertarian propaganda rather than independent investigative reporting for entertainment. I don't say 'libertarian' figuratively, either; they cite the Cato Institute constantly, of which Penn and Teller are both research fellows. I'm not saying the libertarian viewpoint is inherently incorrect, but it's hardly the place to go for unbiased reporting.
What is inherently incorrect are their interview tactics and editing techniques; they're even more misleading than Michael Moore's. Ever notice how rarely you hear the question that was actually asked? Penn's voice-over introduces a topic on their own terms, the video cuts to the interviewee answering an unknown question that was asked by a different interviewer off-camera, and he mocks their response - often while they're still talking. It's all trick editing and impatient over-simplification; it's reality TV disguised as an interview.
Believe what you want, but don't go around thinking "Bullshit" segments provide a good justification for any of your beliefs.
Unlike the evolution argument, the AGW crowd is generally seen as doing it not out of any sort of religious conviction, but out of economic greed and maybe a little bit of delusion, most of the anti-global warming activists use global warming as a springboard to attack conservation in general.
However, the delusions that come from rejecting them seem largely to be the same. Most of the AGW seem to think that as long as global warming isn't real then resources are infinite, so we can burn as much oil as we want and hey, since the planet isn't warming up there are absolutely no other problems associated with doing so....save for of course we are running out of oil, regardless of the temperature of the atmosphere.
Other than coal vs. nuclear(if you are AGW then it makes sense to burn coal as a power source, esp. in the US where we have tons of the stuff, and those worried about global warming should be relatively pro-nuke as it emits almost 0 CO2) there really shouldn't be a lot of practical differences between the groups, and yet there are.
Monstar L
Confusing facts and theories.
So with gravity there's the fact of gravity and the theory of gravity. The fact of gravity is that objects attract, or on a more human scale that things fall down. This is an observed fact. It's not up for debate, it just is. Only thing you could claim is that the observations were incorrect, but of course in the case of gravity there's way too much of that.
Then there's the theory of how gravity works. How fast do things attract, based on what, etc. This is a logical explanation to try and explain the facts observed and how they relate. So you get things like Newton's Laws of Universal Gravitation. An explanation of how it functions. However like any theory, it is possible it could be wrong, that the explanations could be incorrect.
Well, in the case of gravity, it is likely the case. There are things Newton's theory cannot adequately explain, and some inconsistencies with further observations. It is correct on the scale we deal with on Earth, but not in terms of large cosmic scale things. Einstein gave us a new theory, general relativity, which explains it differently. Newton's theory is still a very useful simplification for the every day world (much like the Ideal Gas Law is a useful simplification) but it isn't correct.
Now as that relates to climate change someone can very well look at the facts and say "Yes, the average temperature is increasing," but then say "However I do not believe the theory put forth to explain it is correct."
Do not conflate facts and theories. They are related, not the same.
It is open to revision in response to, and dispute in the form of, results that contradict the existing explanations and more parsimonious explanations for the results which have been produced.
Defending against pressure to teach, as science, "controversy" which does not actually exist within the scope of the scientific work in a field is not anti-science.
Yes, it would be, but that's not what the National Center for Science Education is saying, so that's what's known as a strawman.
And its the anti-empirical ideological-based approach, and the pressure to present the results of that approach as science, that the NCSE is opposing in the two areas in which it is taking stands.
Unlike the non-scientific work at issue, Einstein's work was scientific, and there wasn't an enormous amount of pressure to teach "the controversy" between Einstein's models and Newtonian physics in primary and secondary education when no such controversy actually existed in the scientific community, so the issue is in no way parallel.
This is now my favourite Slashdot post ever. All of my imaginary mod points. All of them.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
“Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.” -- Michael Crichton
Holy Moley ... where to start. OK, there lots of idiots in the skeptic community. There are lots of idiots among the global warming alarmists.
Putting aside all (so many many there are of them) the idiots there are serious skeptics who take many different tacks on the subject.
1 - History. I'm a student of history. I became a skeptic when they tried to erase the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age.
2 - Statistics/Data Analysis. M&M made Michael Mann's Hockey Stick look like a total fraud.
3 - Physics. Most serious skeptics will grant that CO2 absorbs energy at one important wavelength. They will grant as much as 1.4 degrees warming for a doubling of CO2. The thing they won't grant is the feedback necessary to get dangerous warming.
4 - Instrumentation. Anthony Watts has demonstrated the pathetic state of some of our temperature records.
It goes on. There are other mechanisms that can explain the late 20th century warming.
If you want to seriously talk about skeptics, you really should study them a bit more.
Everything about climate change the past decade is fucking moronic. Were all acting like this is some new thing and that it will destroy us all when its just something being exploited by people for the sake of getting some cheap attention so they can be on tv or get funding for some pointless research.
Does no one actually use any common sense or realism when looking at the climate? Has reality taken a back seat to our so called "science"?
1) In the 70s time magazine had this big story they had on the magazine cover talking about how we were heading into a new ice age. In the 60s scientists new for a fact and could proce that nuclear energy was sending us into a new ice age. So what happened to all of that? Why are we saying we are proving global warming now just a few decades later? If they were wrong before how are they right now?
2) This planet is billlions of years old and we have been on it a couple thousand years we as modern man have been around what a couple hundred thousand years and only had scientific knowledge of our level for less than 75 years? How is we can claim to know what is "normal" or what is right in how the way the earth works?
3) This planet has had world wide fires, world wide flood, world wide ice ages, droughts, tectonic plate disruption on massive scales, been bombarded by comets, bombarded by radioactive waves from space, had a reversal of the magnetic poles and so on but we still claim to think the earths climate should only follow a strict and narrow window of what we percieve as normal?
Given just that how exactly are we going to teach anything in a school? School is supposed to be for facts and learning, not just guessing at shit because it sounds good. But then again this america afterall so facts have no place in schools, hell we just make up whatever we want and use context like our bitch, just pick up a history book from a public school if you need proof.
It's not really "Is the climate changing." The climate changes all the time, from short to long term.
The question is - are WE causing the climate change?
mov ah, 4ch
int 21h
Feynman make a good point about the problem of consensus in his biography that just because you have a lot of people agreeing on something, doesn't mean those people know what they are. Maybe the really knowledgeable/smart people are the ones who disagree. He was talking about it in relation to textbooks and how a bad textbook was getting approved because X number of engineers at Y company said it was good.
Also the thing that strikes me about running to consensus is that is what marketers do, not scientists. I never see consensus appealed when discussing evolution. People don't say "Well X% of scientists agree with evolution so it must be true!" Rather they point to the evidence.
is a libtard mental debilitation
Now, I'm not saying AGW is real or unreal. What I am saying is that to even presume to be in the same category as Darwin you must FIRST disclose the raw data. Now. Just do it. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain if you're right. The only reason to not release the data is if you're in fact hiding something or there are many different wants to interpret the data. That leads us to methodology. You then have to explain exhaustively why your method of handling the data is correct. Then after both data and methodology are verified we can look at the conclusions.
Prior to that, it's all premature. In effect, I'm saying science must be open source. Disclose all the data, all the computer code used to manage the data sets, and finally offer up a good sdk to explain what you're doing throughout.
That's how this is supposed to work and it's what Darwin did when he published his theory. If you want to claim AGW is the same as evolution then you need to first make AGW into an ACTUAL scientific theory. AGW is not a theory yet. It isn't nearly as solid. Currently it's still a hypothesis and really taking issue with a hypothesis is not a sign of ignorance or stubborness. Make AGW into a theory and THEN complain about people not accepting it. Not before.
And the first step to do that is to open up and tell people everything. These leaked emails are just a symptom of the problem. Why are these people sneaking around in the dark at all about it? Have your discussions in public or on public channels so we can read what you're saying to each other in real time. Why not? I'm not saying they have reasons to hide the information or that their desire to keep things private is evidence of wrong doing. But someone will make that argument and they do themselves no favors by giving them ammunition. Just open up, treat your opposition with respect and civility, and argue your case like professionals.
If you can't do that then you might as well run off in a childish huff because that's what's required here.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Okay CO2 levels have been rising for 10,000 years. 99% of global CO2 emissions are natural nowadays. So basically adding 1% for 50 years is going to cause the end of the world.
If evolution really existed, then we wouldn't have the endangered species act. Evolution much like creation is relegated to magical period millions of years ago.
Let's consider another "scientific discipline" that was once popular among progressives: eugenics. That's right, science says we should kill or sterilize anyone that we experts think are defective. (Pick your favorite victim group.)
Walk carefully, those of you who think it's OK to use the government to enforce your claims. You may find yourself among truly nasty people.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
No, AGCC is not as well established as evolution.
(Or for that matter, plate tectonics which has only been nearly universally accepted for a surprisingly short time. Mid 1960s.)
It's got a lot of evidence behind it, though.
Where the problem comes up is what should be done to combat it.
It's not "just a few lifestyle changes" as a previous post put it, that some propose. It's a massive reworking of energy infrastructure and how worldwide economies work.
Or it's geo-engineering on an unprecedented scale with no certainty of what all the effects are.
Further, there's no guarantee that those measures will do enough to slow it substantially, let alone stop it.
One of the common themes we hear is that it's a nonlinear process with feedback systems we don't understand well. (North Atlantic ocean circulation? Freeing of methane from tundra or from clathrates? What are the trigger points where it goes into self sustaining increase? Even the effect of cloud cover and how it's modified during warming is only understood somewhat.)
Those points alone should point that it's not nearly so well settled as evolution or plate tectonics.
One of the questions is do we do this massive change and then watch as either the changes aren't as large as expected, or that doing them made no difference.
Look at the responses in this thread. Bitter vitrol thrown by both sides of it (and even some of those in the middle).
If that's not a religious debate by all involved, I hardly know what one is.
We might as well be arguing emacs vs vi.
There are significant exceptions. There are enough deniers in number to make the presumption that most have an economic interest silly. It's not religion, but it's still mostly an issue of ideological predisposition. Also, the points of difference are more varied than implied by the usual discussion. For example, I'm not a denier, but the rational conclusions reached by published studies is that my northern country of Canada will _significantly benefit_ from global warming, as I discussed in this thread http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2625686&cid=38731928 and thus I am hoping for warming of around 3*C over the next few decades.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
If I had been taught the nonsensical “science” that is creationism in college I would have had the teacher removed and the program changed It is just that damn simple. It is one thing to teach evolution and then teach creationism as a secondary that student chose to believe or disbelieve but if they were to only teach creationism and then say that no organism on the planet ever evolves or changes given their environment it would be simply retarded. Please see this chart http://youtu.be/7R6aFsxalM8 and then watch this http://youtu.be/Tngy3nI4Gac I think those two videos explain my point quite well
Climate is a changing, however the only proposed solution is to give already rich people my money through taxes and fines. It should be obvious to anyone who has looked at how the government is able to tackle big problems (Push them to next election +1) will not be the solution. If you talk to many of the Climate Change Deniers you will find a lot of them accept the idea that the climate may be changing, but do not accept the idea that giving the people who brought you SOPA to combat "piracy" and Solera as the solution. Currently there are two camps 1. I believe in AGW - Solution: Taxes and Fines. Deniers - I'll keep my money thank you because things are going to change anyway and the government will likely make it worse. You will find that when the solution is not "Give Al Gore More MONIES" but a technology or solution that doesn't seriously impact a persons way of life you will have a lot less deniers.
I don't think they do that very much. Possibly they do, but most of the time the people they have on the show are kooky enough that you don't need to do that at all. Astrologers, quack scientists, etc. I think they do it more because the persons asking the questions aren't P&T and the show is based on P&T's characteristic personalities. I haven't seen any real evidence they do this, so don't pull a P&T and jump to conclusions there's so evidence for :)
Most of the time P&T just don't make the best possible case for the other side, because they don't understand it.
They're not the greatest on doing science, that's for sure, but it's good entertainment.
And wow, the guy you responded to... HAS to be a high schooler or a college freshman. Like Bullshit! proves anything.
Really. This whole spectacle, this so-called debate, is painful to watch. The rest of us have moved on. And I say that as a friend and a resolute pro-American.
Do I detect a theme here? Deniers are non-scientists who don't know how science is even conducted but nevertheless believe they have a god given (literally) right to barge into a field they know ZERO about and declare what is and is not valid and how that field should consider its own work products.
The level of arrogance here borders on insanity.
Indeed Evolution and Climate change have a few things in common:
a) Both are inconvenient for people who feel a certain kind of entitlement.
b) Both are non-trivial to understand and difficult to predict in practice
c) Both have been grossly exaggerated in the strength and speed of the effects in popular science. (climate change *will not cause a big tidal wave washing away harbour towns*, most likely climate change will *not* be observable definitely within a single human life and evolution will *not* change a species under natural conditions within the lifetime of a single person)
so do these three point make them anyhow weaker theories? Not really.
Lets compare the alternatives: creationism (no falsifiable, therefore no scientific theories) and climate change denial (falsified on every level). so should we teach them in science classes? no, we should not.
What should we teach: be sceptical, especially if somebody tries to scare you with some *seemingly* scientific fact. When people talk about a glacier melting, try to put in the number and *see* if the change in the melting rate is really so bad. But then also estimate for the next hundred years. Be sceptical if explanations are too pleasant (like, don't change you convenient, wasteful lifestyle, you are the image of god).
This is an absurd distortion of science. Numerous fields of research use modeling to both test and refine theories. If you've decided models are now invalid theoretical tools, then everything from quantum mechanics to biology just got thrown out the window.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
It's easy to poke fun of astrologers and the like, that's not what people take issue with. It's when they decide to go on a Libertarian rant about something that isn't painfully obvious pseudoscience and start quoting the Cato Institute as though it's an authority on anything that people cry foul.
As far as my experience goes, man made climate change has been pushed as fact to students for several years now without even acknowledging that their are other view points. I have heard a science teacher say "We have to believe in [man made] climate change because scientists think it's happening." Why aren't we telling students both view points and presenting them with the best evidence available.
All science is modelling. Do you really think that is voltage your multimeter is measuring? Somewhere in your hardware (either explicitly in the software, or implicitly in the circuit design) is a model of how your multimeter is supposed to respond in the presence of a potential difference, something which is again derived from another model, electromagnetism, which is itself dependent on ideas about space and time from contained in special relativity.
All science is done by embedding empirical facts into paradigms which are thought to lend a coherent description of reality. This idea that you can have empirical proof wholly divorced from the framework in which you are doing the investigation is laughable.
Science does not work based solely on empirical facts. Science is embedding and explanation of empirical facts through theory, that is, through models.
Both evolution denial and climate change denial arise, not because some people believe evolution or climate change are not real, but because they know they are.
Oh yes, this is definitely what they need to be concerned about and not their huge budget deficit and the flight of businesses out of their state.
Embarrassed for us? Really? You can tell us in person after you guys all go bankrupt in a few months and we show up with the title to pretty much all of Europe. I'm looking forward to owning a beach in Greece! :)
take it you never realized that "Bullshit" is carefully crafted libertarian propaganda rather than independent investigative reporting for entertainment.
Wow. You must really be surrounded by a cluster fuck of people who think any conservative label (like "libertarian") automatically dismisses trumps every argument. The method that you accuse Penn and Teller of using would amount to slander. And they would have been sued for it numerous times (since they have deep pockets). This kind of method can only be used in a fiction setting (like "Borat") or in a setting where you don't intend to mock the person. But it can't be used in an interview setting. Once you start publicly mocking people for what they say, you better not slander, or you are might as well be writing them a check.
Oh, and comparing skepticism of highly-dubious, highly-politicized research to creationism may seem like you are attacking the same targets, but you are not. Libertarianism is neutral on the god debate. There is a cross-section between libertarians and creationists, but that cross-section is as large as the number of pro-choice libertarians. So it's a useless data point.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
According to the "experts" methane is 15 times more the problem with global warming, yet only CO2 regulation is discussed. If they were REALLY serious about it they would be doing something about that methane instead. But regulation of methane doesn't allow them to tax the population at large for their "plans", they would only be able to tax cow farmers.
That single fact alone shows that global warming alarmists are not interested in fixing anything or scientifically proving anything. They are just interested in taking money from people who have it for their own use in the name of "save the planet". Add to this that ALL climate research data comes from one place that has outright admitted to falifying data to show the results they wanted to show and suddenly it becomes fairly obvious this is just an attempt to enslave the masses.
Correct. Of course, in science, as in just about any technically sophisticated field, it typically takes 5-10 years to acquire the background knowledge and expertise required to evaluate the evidence, not to mention reading through the literature and inspecting it.
So what do you do if you lack the time or the inclination to become an expert? The next best thing is to look at the consensus of the experts--they guys who have formed their opinions based upon personal study of the evidence. Consensus is not science--but when science is properly done, a consensus emerges, because intelligent, knowledgeable people studying the same evidence tend to reach similar conclusions.
But of course, there are always some people who are of a paranoid frame of mind, and who are pathologically suspicious of people who have knowledge that they lack, constantly suspecting that the experts are colluding to gull them, particularly when the experts are telling them something that they don't want to hear. So instead of accepting the consensus, they latch on to some guy who looks a little bit like an expert but who rejects the expert consensus--often a retired expert, or some guy with expertise in a peripherally related field (a weatherman or engineer instead of a climate scientist, for example)--and acclaiming that guy as their guru.
In science, we have a technical term for people like this.
We call them cranks.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php
and to quote from home page
Scientific skepticism is healthy. Scientists should always challenge themselves to improve their understanding. Yet this isn't what happens with climate change denial. Skeptics vigorously criticise any evidence that supports man-made global warming and yet embrace any argument, op-ed, blog or study that refutes global warming. This website gets skeptical about global warming skepticism. Do their arguments have any scientific basis? What does the peer reviewed scientific literature say?
but it's hardly the place to go for unbiased reporting.
I find it extremely difficult to have confidence in ANY reporting that claims to be unbiased nowadays. I am extremely scorn when it comes to trusting anything to do with the mainstream media, and have grown increasingly wary of some of the sources I once trusted. This is why I was excited when stuff like Wikileaks started happening, because at least it was devoid of bullshit and just official documents that you could draw your own conclusions from. Granted that is still possible, but with a much larger amount of effort required now as opposed to the the searchable database of cables and closed-door documents that were available for a while.
"I hope you know how very lucky you are to know me, because I am so incredibly incredible."
http://www.gallup.com/poll/114544/darwin-birthday-believe-evolution.aspx
Doesn't matter, what ever they are teaching in schools doesn't seem to be sticking anyways. Teach what ever you want, We are dumb will be going down soon as soon as smart people immigrating here will go back to their country because their home countries are getting better.
Can't wait to watch it all go to the crapper.
It's pretty funny to see somebody spout on about "arrogance" in the same breath as declaring that computer models portending to model anything anywhere near as complex as planetary climate as "how science is done."
No. You don't know much of anything about either modeling or science if you actually believe that.
...with a falsifiable hypothesis statement.
Creationism doesn't have a falsifiable hypothesis statement, evolution does.
Now, for anyone who cares to play the science game, succinctly state your falsifiable hypothesis of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming. Be specific.
Do we really need to agree?
Why everyone on the street talk about climate change without knowing anything?
Do you really know what is the NORMAL or average temperature on Earth?
Do you known we are live in an extreme weather right now?
We do not need to agree, we beg to differ.
Wow. You must really be surrounded by a cluster fuck of people who think any conservative label (like "libertarian") automatically dismisses trumps every argument.
I guess you couldn't be bothered to read far enough to get to the point where GP said that the viewpoints presented in a positive light on Bullshit aren't necessarily incorrect, but clearly biased.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2012/2011GL050226.shtml Obviously the authors are paid shills of the tar sands industry. "Our analysis also leads to a relatively low and tightly-constrained estimate of Transient Climate Response of 1.3–1.8C, and relatively low projections of 21st-century warming under the Representative Concentration Pathways. Repeating our attribution analysis with a second model (CNRM-CM5) gives consistent results, albeit with somewhat larger uncertainties. "
At school level I think there are two things that science should cover:
1) The scientific method.
2) A solid grounding in science's current understanding of the world.
Pragmatically I think we have to accept that at school level a lot of (2) will be taught as generally accepted without much time devoted to "alternate" views as there is so much basic science to cover. Certainly it should be backed up with experimentation where possible. Climate change probably isn't a good candidate for that due to the complexity involved but lack of school level experimental support alone isn't enough to disqualify it (nuclear fission also doesn't offer much opportunity for class time experimentation!).
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Conservatives often believe in the power of "common sense" and dismiss subject experts as biased by the "liberal education system".
True, science is supposed to be empirically verifiable, but the common man cannot perform most of the tests and verifications on their own. Thus, they rely on alleged conservative subject experts to judge the topic.
If you point out that most of those with "proper credentials" don't support the conservative view (that X is false), they'll just say that the education system bias weeds out most conservative experts such that conservative experts won't have such degrees.
Until their own house bakes to a crisp, they won't believe climate experts with formal degrees because they believe the whole education system is corrupt and biased due to the "liberal commies" running the universities.
(And if their house does burn to a crisp, they'll probably think, "Damn! I'm baking in hell because I talked to liberals.")
Table-ized A.I.
The pro-AGW is the most dogmatic crowd I've come across. I have across religious crowds who make absurd arguments for pro-life position and anti-evolution position. They are not even close to the level of crazy that you get out of the foam-at-the-mouth pro-AGW crowd. If you can't name prominent skeptics of AGW position (or think that none exist), then you don't even know what the either side's counter argument is. And you definitely have no basis for claiming that the counter argument is weak.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Climate change is old. Modern climate and weather science is about 150 years old. Current global anthropogenic climate change allegations linked to tax and trading schemes is about 95% a Piltdown Mann scam between some lousy academics and power/money hungry politicians riddled with overt frauds.
Lines like this have always plagued science:
"... So the climate is changing... it is settled... no further debate! Oh, and the earth is the center of the universe so Galileo, we are coming for you next!"
I just hoped it wouldn't come from self proclaimed scientists.
I exist, that's all I know for sure, *everything* else is a belief.
I think I'll go with solipsism personally.
Seriously, we have a number of them that have transplanted to Colorado. And at this time, I think that they have a serious neuro virus that has destroyed their ability to think. They believe that cutting taxes, waging multiple wars, raising spending, and denying science will solve everything.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Take two transparent jars of air.
In one jar, pump in some extra CO2, and pump out enough other gases so that the mas of air in the jars is equal.
Put them both under a heat-lamp. Which one gets hotter, and by how much?
The answers to these questions were known to physics over a century ago. That's why global warming was predicted over a century ago.
Sure, the Earth's climate is more complex than a jar of air. That doesn't mean that the first law of thermodynamics is null and void on Earth. Without some kind of mitigating factor, the temperature on Earth MUST increase when greenhouse gases are increased. This is simply a fact.
So-called skeptics must come up with a mitigating factor. To date, they have not, and to date, surface temperatures have behaved as predicted by real scientists.
When did slashdot become some kind of mouthpiece for the Cato Institute? It's depressing to read comments on global warming articles these days.
Yeah too bad the world's scientists disagree with you.
The world's scientists: "we know KNOW FOR A FACT that computer modeling of complex systems is valid science.
me: The world's scientists think that computer models are a valid way top conduct science
you:t's pretty funny to see somebody spout on about "arrogance" in the same breath as declaring that computer models portending to model anything anywhere near as complex as planetary climate as "how science is done."
The thing is, society is not constrained to convince it's least gifted members of the veracity of the last details of the most complicated science before they utilize that science to direct policy.
Go ahead Mr. President. Do whatever you need to do to maintain the national security of the United States of America.
Piffle and nonsense--the article is basically an elaborate form of "have you stopped beating your wife"?
Any objective scientist will tell you that the AGW idea doesn't remotely reach the standards of a real "theory". It *does* explain some observations in the same way Creationism does, but only by cherry picking data and incorrectly confusing "correlation" with "causation". Anybody can show correlation (http://www.seanbonner.com/blog/archives/001857.php) but that don't mean one thing about *causation*. All the thermometers in the world showing temperatures are great to see and it's always good to have reliable data (though apparently not all of the AGW stuff is all that reliable--http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/jhurrell/Docs/hurrell.soundings.jclim98.pdf), but one needs *proof* to tie everything together.
Is the Earth warming? Maybe....the observations are definitely mixed on this (http://icecap.us/images/uploads/USHCNvsCO2.jpg , http://isthereglobalwarming.com/yahoo_site_admin/assets/docs/2010_2011_winter_2.6753403.gif). (NOTE that the second is a decidedly anti-global warming site.)
If the Earth is warming, are increasing CO2 levels the cause? Doubtful. CO2 levels were higher during the last Ice Age (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/334/6060/1261) and the current CO2 levels are practically rock-bottom compared to the bulk of the collected data (http://ff.org/centers/csspp/library/co2weekly/2005-08-18/dioxide.htm).
The AGW theorists have made numerous predictions using their various software models, which have been shown to be simplistic and unworthy of a first year software student (http://www.climatedepot.com/a/1813/US-Government-Scientists-Shock-Admission-Climate-Model-Software-Doesnt-Meet-the-Best-Standards-Available). As a simulations expert I've had the chance to examine much of the code that was released from the Hadley Institute a few years back....it was *horrifically* poorly put together. If these had been my student, they'd have failed the course.
Nor frankly do those predictions pan out. Just a few years ago Al Gore (basing his statements on information various AGW alarmists were spouting at the time) said that "...the Arctic will be ice free by 2013..." (http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2011/02/horror-junk-scientist-al-gore-predicts-north-pole-will-be-completely-ice-free-by-next-year/). I'm guessing that Mother Nature didn't get the word.
AGW models also predicted that the ocean deep sea temperatures would rise by approximately 1 degree Centigrade (http://www.knmi.nl/cms/content/99641/tracing_the_upper_oceans_missing_heat and http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88520025). It would seem that there are some parameters missing from their calculations.
Lastly, in order for AGW to rise to the level of a theory it must be able to postulate experiments that would prove it to be true. This hasn't happened and can't without a few dozen parallel Earths. You *test* a hypothesis by performing controlled experiments and seeing how well observations match experimental results as well as predictions. We've already shown that many of the predictions are flawed, and as to experiments--hard to do without some Earths to test against.
AGW is at best an unproven hypothesis in much the same way as Creationism is, with fewer religious overtones. It doesn't belong in schools any more than Creationism does, and for very similar reasons. Stick to *facts* and leave the activism for college.
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
If you can't name prominent skeptics of AGW position (or think that none exist), then you don't even know what the either side's counter argument is.
99% of scientists? The vast, VAST majority of the scientific community accept global warming as scientifically valid.
Monstar L
Would you agree or disagree that "there is no climate change" is a valid talking point?
It is a valid point for introducing the concept - it would be a good way to introduce the evidence in a thought provoking way and get the students to think about whether there is a better explanation for the data than climate change. Of course to do this you need teachers capable of really understanding the observations so they can point out flaws in arguments.
However I've noted that the climate change proponents are just as guilty of anti-science rhetoric as their opponents. For example an A-level physics question in the UK once showed a plot of remaining fossil energy reserves (decreasing) and energy demand (increasing) and asked how this plot showed that the UK must develop renewable energy sources. Of course the graph did not show that - it just showed that eventually fossil energy sources would not be enough given current demand predictions. This is also solvable by developing other non-renewable sources (e.g. nuclear) or simply by being more energy efficient and reducing demand.
So opponents of climate change may be anti-science by denying evidence but the proponents are often just as anti-science by ignoring other solutions and just pushing the "green" political agenda they want to see enacted. Neither side seems to be actually interested in what science really has to say when it is not what they want to hear... which is precisely when you should listen to science because that is when you learn the most!
It is as well established as evolution. The basic science is over 100 years old and today's developments have been predicted 30+ years ago.
That doesn't stop people from denying it.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
Let's consider another "scientific discipline" that was once popular among progressives: eugenics. That's right, science says we should kill or sterilize anyone that we experts think are defective. (Pick your favorite victim group.)
Where's the scientific evidence of this?
I've never seen any evidence of Eugenics programs working. If anything, the scientific argument is against it. We know what happens when genetic diversity is eliminated from a society, it becomes inbred and countless experiments have proven that genetically isolation does not produce a superior species. This is why you cant keep breeding that prize racehorse or bullock with the same stock.
Eugenics was never a scientific discipline. It was a social one, the idea that one class of people are inherently superior is not an idea supported by science, in fact it's refuted by it.
Think about what you're saying rather then making poorly veiled anti-establishment rants.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
But there be boobies!
If global warming is settled, why was it renamed "global warming" to "climate change" in mid-stream?
The problem is that the NCSE doesn't just want to teach about the science of climate change. They want to push specific policy proposals as "The Solution" to the problem:
http://ncse.com/climate/teaching/humans-can-reduce-climate-change
The media, at least in the US, has a habit of presenting equal sides when that isn't the case.
a weak, disingenuous neutrality
it can't be helping this situation.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Oh, no, I agree with you ABSOLUTELY there--I noticed the same thing, AND I found it pretty inappropriate that they didn't disclose their own personal ties to the Cato Institute when they did so.
However, I was not talking about that--I was talking about what the previous poster said in regards to malicious editing. I honestly don't think they do that--they don't need to, either because the people they are talking to are stupid enough, or because they aren't going to the best sources on the subject.
It really is great television, though.
50 million climate refugees by 2010.
UN Proramme on Climate Change.
I'll also point out that Newtonian Physics and Relativity are in Harmony within the speed range hypothesized and studied by Newton. Einstein's special relativity can be seen as a correction to the original theory that at low speeds the correction factor is essentially zero. In fact there is a way to present the Newtonian equations of motion and gravity with the Relativistic correction attached that shows that Newton's theory's were never invalidated, just didn't cover speeds that are whole digit percentages of C where the % of C correction that Einstein discovered come into play.
So in Summary, Einstein didn't prove Newton wrong, he in fact added to the Newtonian equations a correction that hadn't been discovered because Newton was limited very low speed study.
Whether or not humans are effecting climate change does not matter. As long as an oil based economy gives one country a better standard of living than the other it will continue. This is the tragedy of the commons. The only way to stop this trend is to invent another form of energy that comes cheaper than extracting and refining fossil fuels. THAT is the inconvenient truth.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Okay, I'm probably just suffering from too much comment skimming.
It really is great TV, I agree. Some people don't understand that it's totally OK if you have to be a little skeptical of a skeptical TV show. I mean, you ought to be skeptical about everything, so whatever :)
Think what you want, but you can't have my money. As long as we can agree on that, there isn't a problem.
"In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash"
I suspect the debate in the school will be much like Slashdot. The really intelligent kids will be aware of this debate, and learn about things other than global warming. The parents will never suspect that they are learning these things. The average kids will learn whatever you feed them. The dumb kids will learn very little of course but in some strange way that might be an advantage. Jay Leno was the class clown. The "smart" kids in his class? Who knows what they're doing?
Not trying to toot my own horn and put myself in the "smart" category; but I went to both public and private schools. I learned that public schools really do indoctrinate you with some leftwing alarmist crap, and that private schools really do indoctrinate you with some alarmist right wing crap. It took me a while to figure this out, temporarily absorbing and regurgitating the crap along the way; but eventually I figured out the real lesson that they were trying not to teach us:
Adults don't know jack shit either, and they're just as scared of the dark as you.
When it's factual and truthful, it's not propaganda. WHen it's factual and truthful, you don't need justification, because it's factual and truthful; not "belief".
When did Libertarian become Conservative? It's a completely different quadrant.
Look this is all a mute point, seeing as the world is going to end in Dec. Or at lest the Mayans thought so...
Chief among the proponenets of MMGW is the British Meterological Office.
These clowns can't get this afternoon's weather right, yet their models show an x degree rise in temperature in 50 years time and they are taken seriously.
Anyway, it can be seen from this thread that slashdot is compromised with MMGW believers (a more stupid, deluded, cowardly group you couldn't hope to meet).
Earlier posts fulfill the need for believers to liken "deniers" to holocaust deniers and Nazis - thus showing precisely how much reality and objectivity is left.
Appeals to the myth that "the science is settled", that "everyone now believes" etc are all indicators of reality abandoned and politically motivated science having taken over.
Money has corrupted everything and truth is now what the money men say it is.
There really is no hope for us a species.
... or the new Intelligent Design.
CO2 is a TRACE GAS
That means LESS THEN 1% in the atmosphere ...
Get over it CO2 CAN NOT create a greenhouse effect there is not enough in the atmosphere.
So then, where is this guy that screams "denalist" at any divergence from the party line? What's his name?
In In case you haven''t paid attention to the Republican Party over the last dozen years, they've got a lot of tightly organized talking points that the party leaders push out through all the different media and craziness groups - Anti-tax, pro-war, anti-gay, Obama's-a-socialist, anti-deficit if the Democrats are in office, don't-worry-about-deficits-we-have-higher-priorities if Republicans are in office, etc. Some of these are core values that the party leaders really care about, and others are tactical positions that are useful for getting different groups of voters involved. The finance folks don't really care about gay marriage, but they'll go along on that because it brings in religious conservative voters who show up at polls and rallies and donate money.
Anti-science is a tactical position; anti-climate change is a core message from their corporate sponsors. Bashing evolution makes it easier to bash climate change science, as well as bringing in religious conservative voters, and gets the rabble in the habit of believing talking points their leaders hand them, but the party leadership doesn't really care about evolution - they care very very much about not having Congress make laws about climate change that would affect Big Oil and Big Coal and Big Agribusiness. And they don't care if it means destroying science education in schools for a generation as long as their bottom line is protected for a while; the kids who are going to be scientists can learn evolution in college.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Isn't the real problem that schools feel the need to teach global warming at all? I think that's the heart of what's rubbing all the skeptics the wrong way. They see the disproportionate attention that is paid to a phenomenon that is weakly proven and thus far totally inconsequential in terms of a miniscule sea level and temperature rise, plus pretty much the same climate everywhere that existed 100 years ago. The obvious conclusion is that a bunch of people are trying to work some propaganda into impressionable schoolkids' school experiences--and that's really annoying.
Here's my concern:
Evolution is observed, confirmed in the lab, confirmed by validated predictions, experiments, logic and simulations. There's tons of absolutely irrefutable evidence and we've been confirming it for 200 years.
Climate science is nascent. There's also plenty of evidence for global warming, but not completely deterministic. The science behind it is good but not rock-solid. We can't make perfect predictions and we are still fine tuning our understanding. So while anyone that doubts evolution is either a fool or voluntarily suspending reasoning in favor of faith, someone doubting global warming might be just someone that has a higher bar for proof. Global warming is most likely true, but far from 100% proven. So by putting it in the same boat of evolution we are doing a disservice to science.
GP didn't say that their argument is invalid, only that it's biased. Biased arguments are often valid; the bias is usually in selectively picking the points where facts support your viewpoint, and ignoring those points where they do not.
Q: When did Libertarian become Conservative?
A: When Ron Paul became an influential Republican. I think mainstream conservatism has finally freaked out enough about the economy to look beyond abortion and marriage in their selections, and many of them have picked a candidate who is actually libertarian rather than conservative. So those two camps are merging.
It's easy to poke fun of astrologers and the like
Say what you like about astrology, but no one can deny that an opposition between Mercury and the Sun is something to worry about, for example.
Because everyone knows that NO media outlet will EVER quote someone out of context.
Climate change is a reality it has happened thousand of times before and it will happen again SUV or no SUV. The climate chasing man made global warming crowd is pushing a polical agenda. They are the new Church. Anybody that disagrees with them will be burned at the stake. There is no science here folks. Science is about questioning, observing, experimenting not consensus.
My completely subjective measure of whether or not someone is worth discussing anthropogenic climate change with is whether they use the term "skeptic" to describe people who aren't sold on the theory, or "denier". Anyone who uses the latter is trying to draw a parallel between taking the "wrong" side of the issue and systematic genocide.
I think 6 million Jews deserve better than being used as a rhetorical bludgeon to demonize one's political opponents as a substitute for thoughtful debate
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
The problem with the modelling is that it cannot actually tell us what will happen in the future. It's just a guess based on certain parameters at a given time. And basing government policies(that will affect how and where tax money gets spent) on said models is ridiculous. And it doesn't help to have some scientists running around telling everyone the sky is falling and we're all doomed unless we do X, Y and Z RIGHT NOW. I know that gets the most attention, but that does not help anyone. It certainly does lend credibility to their position.
*does not lend
"Burn the heretics."
The large problem is that there isn't a large enough voice to take a neutral stance, On one side we have scientists funded by the finger pointers and another group funded by the "hear no evil" hands over the ears and spouting "La la la I can't hear you la la.."
There's no reward (paycheck) from being objective and take into consideration both sides.
I guess I am crazy, but let me tell you my experience. I got married in Montreal Canada in November 1968. By the 15th of November in those 1960 years, there was about two feet of snow on the ground, and by end of November 1960s, even more snow and cold. This type of weather persisted for about 10 years, until we began to realize that our winters were starting later, and the number of degree days (an average yearly measure) was increasing. Ten years ago, winter arrived just before Christmas, with the seasonal snow and cold.
Every year since, winter is starting later. This year (2012) our first real snow storm arrived around the 10th of January, and the true snow and cold, really started the 15th. From November 15th to January 15th is two months later start of winter than what we used to experience. Our summers are warmer too.
That is my personal living experience.
I believe that Americans in the central region of the USA have to look at their summers and the temperatures you have in July, Where I believe it used to be close to 100F (35C), it is now coming in at 41C-45C or 120F. Of course it is not global warming, it is just a quirk of nature that is beginning to repeat itself. -- Right?
In the next 25 years, I predict that the USA mid-and south west will be inhabitable as it is today in mid-summer. You will be moving North, to cooler temperatures. You will probably be planning vacations in Canada. And no, Canada will not become the next 10 American states.
Ask the scientists who study the Arctic and Antarctic about warming. Do they see changes? If they do not, then there is no global warming occurring. And the Northern Arctic Passage from Atlantic to Pacific Ocean opening up and being available is just a myth.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
Except that libertarianism is for the most part economically incompetent randoid nonsense that tends to live in the same brain as people who think climate change isn't real and jesus lived at the same time as dinosaurs.
VOTE RON PAUL: BECAUSE SOME ME JUST WANT TO SEE THE WORLD BURN
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
Mocking someone is not the same as slandering them.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Why yes, Mr. President, put the giant sunshade satellites into orbit with some poor encryption. Don't worry about the long-term implications of someone...borrowing your system...Muhahahahahaha!
Maybe America doesn't get its sunlight this week, unless, of course, *puts pinky in mouth* I receive one trillion dollars?
So, what is the damage to the American economy, if America doesn't seen the Sun for a week or two?
I am John Hurt.
see*
I am John Hurt.
Ask and ye shall receive - falsifiable hypotheses that will cause me to change my opinion about AGW if invalidated:
1) human activity is increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere
2) CO2 is a greenhouse gas (that is, CO2 absorbs infrared photons and reduces the loss of heat from the earth)
3) the earth is getting warmer
Fire away :)
NB if there were ever a scenario where the "precautionary principle" were applicable, a poorly understood chaotic system upon which our civilization depends (food, water, shelter) with known attractor states very different from the current one (collapse of the North Atlantic thermohaline conveyer to give one example) is it...
I think you have missed my point. All inferential science is just models with parameters.
What you have just said amounts to the statement 'No science should ever inform policy'. I would suggest this is truly ridiculous.
Can you point to a single inferential experimental science which is not just models with parameters?
You are only taking on a position of damage control if you can't or for your own political reasons won't acknowledge that some of the "Bullshit" of what they are saying is, indeed, possibly true. Although, it seems as if the bits of what could be true come far and few between 'and' without remedy, seemingly only to inject more pie in the face of the masses, more humiliation and gut-wrenching, gratifying the sadistic bunch daily. [You know who you are.]
Damage control won't cover up the stench, dearie.
Monkey see monkey do parrots!
Do it for the good of the world, not some political grandstand.. So far, that's all the global warming issue is.. People argue over speculative (at best) information, there is as much proof that humans caused global warming as God exists.
and by mostly the same groups of people who want to shove their religion down your throat.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I don't know if it's a matter of change itself being denied, as much as it's being denied that change is a problem in the first place.
SO million of displaced and starving people is fine?
The world is bigger then Canada
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
When I think about the USA being a science leader it was about the same time that Cave Johnson got his first Pipboy 3000.
In other words, circa the 1960's. Maybe it was 3 mile island that scared the collective public off, who knows. Heck look at all the heroes in comic books (or even villains), they were all scientists of some sort, or involved science in some way. It was thought of as an esteemed career. Kids got electronic kits and chemistry sets. Model Rocketry and Plane Kits.
What the hell happened to all the romanticism around science and the possibilities for the future?
World3.
New Scientist.
Luntz.
Evolution is proven easily to anyone who will rationally look at the mountains of evidence. The entire science of biology is built on the tested foundation of evolution. Global warming is much less proven. I can probably walk up to any biologist and ask for clarification on any fine point of evolution and they should easily be able to answer any questions I might have about the theory.
I am no crackpot but I have a reasonable question which I have posed in lots of places and to lots of people about global warming that no one has yet to give any answer, so I will pose it here. Please explain to me how Vikings raised cattle on Greenland for 500 years in places that are still buried under ice today. I can't take credit for creating the question, as I heard it from Jerry Pournelle but is discussed at length and with some scholarly merit across the web as the Medieval Warming Period. No one can make any scholarly arguments against any core aspect of evolution, but Global Warming still has some obstacles to overcome before it has a tiny bit of the acceptance of evolution.
It's actually pretty funny to people who know something about how computers really do and don't work, that you expect that thousands of different equations can be fed hundreds of thousands data points and be iterated over millions of times and not get an answer that hasn't veered off into random noise due to round-off error alone! The simple truth is we are just not smart enough to model the climate, and even if we were, we aren't smart enough to build a computer to accurately run the model.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Environmentalism is the new religion. Don't think. Don't reason. Don't weigh costs. Don't question. Join or be disparaged. Repent before it is too late.
The concept of falsifiability is oversold. Science is about finding the best model(s) that match observations of the real world. The "best" model is the one that best fits observations. Falsifiability is a nice bonus, but not necessary to have way to judge which of multiple theories (models) are the best fit to observations.
Table-ized A.I.
Since I began to observe this theory in the 80s, I've seen increasing evidence that it is true, including, like you said, a 2500 year study of tree rings. Thus, as I observed the increasing emotion over the theories that (a) global warning is primarily caused by people (anthropogenic) and (b) that it will have dire consequences that we can prevent, I've been looking for evidence that the science behind these theories contradicts the theories that our climate has its own cycles, including long-term cycles, that can account for the long-term trends.
Here is what I've observed the most:
1> Many people look at temperature trends and ASSUME they are caused by people, using these trends to "prove" that people are causing global warning. This discrediting position has become predominant, and can even be found in posts in this thread above. This has made it difficult to have and objective scientific discussion of climate change, and created an atmosphere of distrust towards the concept of "consensus". Yes, there are people, and there are scientists. But, I am amazed at how many people claimed to be scientists, yet still could demonstrated a belief in an obvious assumption.
2> There is a lot of emotion in the discussion by those who BELIEVE that global warming will lead to great disaster if to do not do something dramatic right away.
3> Many can in one sentence claim to be very scientific, then in another sentence bash anyone who questions whether or not (a) disaster is coming, (b) people are the cause of the coming disasters, and (c) people can, at great cost, prevent the disasters.
4> Most of the evidence that people are the cause of climate change is attributed to computational models we are supposed to blindly trust without understanding or viewing, despite the fact that these models disagree with each other, and most of the scientists working on these models admit that the unknown variables are still very large, including many things about physics, chemistry and climate we are only beginning to understand.
5> The vast majority of people who claim that the models are the reason to conclude that the climate theories are beyond skepticism know virtually nothing about the calculations and the data fed into them, or have taken the time to look for weaknesses in the models, such as needed improvements in understanding natural cycles, feedback loops and how the climate responds to change.
Looking that this evidence, I'm forced to conclude that:
1> while global warming could be the trend for the next century and there may be anthropogenic causes behind at least part of it, a religion has formed around global warming, creating a culture the demonizes those who hold skepticism, assuming they are just ignoring the facts, and cannot possibly understand "the science".
2> if I am to find solid evidence that falsifies the theory that our climate change is due to natural long-term cycles, I'm going to have to work really hard to sift through the noise created by #1-5 above.
To be sure, while the scientific evidence supporting theories of anthropogenic global warming does not falsify my theories about natural climate cycles, it does cause me to put it in balance with the possibity that people are impacting climate:
1> there are gases that have a greenhouse effect.
2> models have a partial consensus on climate trends.
Open Standards Portal
It's funny you mention quantum, because that's a fantastic example of exactly why skeptics take such a hard line on climate models. Even quantum experts barely understand their field -- many times they have some hypothesis (like a Higgs Boson) that they have no idea if its going to happen or not, so they run tests and then adjust based on observations. That whole field is one of speculation and uncertainty. I would believe "definitely modeling the climate behavior of an entire planet -- past, present, and future" belongs in the same level of credulity. Instead, "climate scientists" somehow get a pass, where their testing and definitiveness of their conclusions is more on par with mostly proven and well understood concepts like "simple newtonian physics" and "chemistry". The fervor and decisiveness that I hear from people on the AGW train, scientist or not, is mind-boggling. It's as if the models they invented are the hand-passed testament of some divine entity, rather than the guesses of a bunch of people who have a vague idea of the total picture. So that's my question: why does climate science get treated like a "Scientific Law" rather than the "Theory" or most likely "Hypothesis" that it really is?
99% of scientists?
What methodology did you use to come with this figure?
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Calling it a "libertarian propaganda" gave enough of indication of the post's bias. I clearly stated a reason that "Bull Shit" could not be as fake as the post claimed. And if it's not fake, then it is not biased -- at least not in the way in which the post claimed. Reality has no bias -- only opinions do.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
No, mocking someone is not the same as slandering them. But the fact that someone was mocking an individual does not, in itself, constitute a defense against slander. Some mocking is slanderous. I actually gave examples of which types of mocking would not be slanderous. The type of mocking that the post accused "Bull Shit" of would have been slanderous if "Bull Shit" were as fake as the post claimed.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Ok, so it's only 90% with shills for the oil industry being the biggest doubters.
Monstar L
Computer models are used every day to predict the weather, and can't get that right half the time. Expanding that to a global level raises the difficulty a couple orders of magnitude.
FTFY
WOOFYGOOFY's level of arrogance here borders on insanity
Weather is the day to day expression of climate conditions in a certain geographical area. .
Climate is the study of the atmospheric and other forces which give rise to the conditions which create weather each day.
By analogy, we can predict what the population will be 20 years hence (although something may happen that changes our prediction) but we can't predict for any given individual whether or how many children they will have when
Just an analogy to get the point across. ON a large time scale, if you understand the driviing forces , you can predict what the future average . will be.
If you try to zero in on a daily or hourly basis, your prediction for that time frame is more likely to be wrong.
But you already accept this idea, right? You know because of the changes which cause the seasons to change that the temperature in July will be greater than the temperature in January. But for any given day, you can't predict the weather or even the temperature.
The reason it's this way is because you know the large forcing factors involved in the change of seasons and what those forcing factors will do to the temp generally.
But on an hourly or daily basis, you don't know. You have to express the temp for any given future moment as a PROBABILITY within a given RANGE
And not surprisingly, this is exactly how climate change projections are expressed. As probabilities within temperature ranges
Ok, so it's only 90% [sciencedaily.com]
The link you provided did not quote that figure. Do you have a more accurate link to a verifiable source of information?
with shills for the oil industry being the biggest doubters.
Is there any reason to doubt oil-industry's scientific research? They do quite good chemistry (turning oil into gas and all), incredible logistics (transporting oil all over the world, etc.). Most of the message of supporters of pro-AGW position doesn't come from the scientific community. It comes from politicians. If you insist on attributing motivation to oil-industry-employed scientists, then why do you skip over attributing motivation to government-grant-supported researchers (so willingly agreeing with politicians)?
By the way, do you have any evidence to support the claim that all skeptics are sponsored by the oil industry? It would seem to me that the very-politically connected oil industry (governor and then senator Rockefeller of the Standard Oil money was a Democrat) would be more interested in consolidating energy production in the hands of politicians.
Do you have any evidence to back up your position or are you just parroting the opinions which made you the most angry when you read them? It is, after all, known that rage, marked by high levels of adrenaline, is conducive to formation of new memories. So do you think it just might be possible that you remember the evidence of the pro-AGW camp better because it's presented in the baiting and angry "it's the end of the world" fashion and that you don't remember the gist of the anti-AGW camp's position because their position is much less emotional and much more leveled?
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
About 90 percent of the scientists agreed with the first question and 82 percent the second.
If your reading comprehension is that poor that you cannot even understand what that means, it's not even worth talking to you, much like other anti global warmers, you lack the necessary cognitive functions to understand basic science.
Monstar L
You don't actually know anyone with a phyiscs PhD do you.
Calling quantum physics uncertain and barely understood is absurd. Some of the philosophy of quantum mechanics is a bit tricky to understand, but the equivalent of quantum engineering is so refined that your average joe PhD in physics could calculate physical quantities like the g-minus 2 of the electron to precision that would make your eyes bleed.
Your inability to comprehend relative levels of uncertainty here is staggering. Yes, the existence of the Higgs boson is unclear, there are other mechanisms which could be at play. The empirical evidence is not yet in. But the computer you used to type this message is dependent on the staggering accuracy of quantum mechanics outside of the very uncommon (terrestrially speaking) high energy regime where things like the Higgs are a concern.
Putting climate science in the same league as quantum mechanics is absurd precisely because the engineering associated with quantum mechanics is just that darn good. The engineering associated with climate science is no where near as good as that associated with that of quantum mechanics, this is precisely why so few climate scientists are gung ho about geoengineering. At the same time suggesting it is in some way poorly understood or unclear is about 30 years out of date, and even then there were things we knew with as close to cast iron certainty as you can get in science.
You seem to be confused as to what a scientific law, a theory and a hypothesis are. A law not a certain statement in science (in fact almost all laws break down under suitable conditions). A law is generally non-mechanistic relationship between variables which holds over a wide variety of conditions, for example Newtons Law of Universal Gravitation. As laws don't posit mechanisms they are in fact generally viewed in the scientific community to be subordinate to theories, since unlike a theory which seeks to explain a wide collection of observed phenomena a law simply acts as a record of observed phenomena.
Theories represent the pinnacle of scientific inference. They posit mechanisms for observed phenomena, make predictions about how relevant parts of the material world will behave and explain a large set of empirical facts, none of which contradict the theory in its domain of applicability. An example would be the theory of quantum electrodynamics. Like all scientific statements, theories can, and usually are wrong. One of the jobs of science is establishing the domain of applicability of theories. However, suggesting that something be treated like a 'theory' when we are operating in the known domain of applicability of that theory is tantamount to suggesting that it should be treated as gospel.
All models are guesses, but calling the basis for climate models vague is absurd. There are facts here, these can be tied together into theories, those theories suggest models which can make predictions.
It is a fact that mean global surface temperature has gone up in the last 50 years. It is a fact that the ocean is absorbing more heat. It is a fact that the polar ice caps are shrinking. It is a fact that birds and plants are migrating and flowering earlier in the year. It is a fact that extreme weather events are becoming more common.
The theory, at present the only theory, which explains all these facts and is consistent with existing theories in physics is the theory of anthropogenic climate change. If you have an alternative hypothesis I'm all ears, but it has to explain everything that the theory of anthropogenic climate change explains and cannot violate known principle of physics because by explaining these facts and predicting the current warming trend the theory of anthropogenic climate change has attained precisely that status, the status of a theory. It is this achievement that your pretender hypothesis now has to aspire to. There is a Nobel prize and tenure waiting for you if you can do it.
Once you have that hypothesis your next job is to build a model
I don't know where you are quoting from. This was not in the link you provided.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
I have a PhD in math, btw. So the rudeness of your comment is more than uncalled for.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Ok, it could be a browser thing. The last time I clicked on that link, it didn't take me to the article. It took me to the front page of that site. I see what you are referring to now. The question about methodology and the conclusion stands. Here's some of the figures:
"3,146 earth scientists surveyed"... how many physicists? Heat flow is a phenomenon studied in physics. How many evolutionary biologists? Changes in uptake and release of carbon are effected by evolutionary trends.
"climatologists who are active in research showed the strongest consensus on the causes of global warming, with 97 percent agreeing humans play a role. Great" and yet "47 percent of petroleum geologists believing in human involvement." Seems to me like grant motivation plays larger role than direct connection to an oil industry in this case.
I still have to take issue with your tone, btw. You are acting like a bona fide religious fanatic. And you are trying to exercise this fanaticism in a setting of a discussion about a scientific issue. This is quite bizarre.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
As is well known from evolutionary psychology, or even common sense, we're biologically predisposed to care more for those we have personal relations with (because for millions of years those close to us correspond to members of one's tribe, which are more likely to share some of the same genetic heritage--while this is no longer true in a globalized world, brain biology takes a lot longer to evolve corresponding changes than the current age of human civilization). This is not going to change unless we genetically or cybernetically engineer ourselves, regardless of any amount of left-wing cultural programming. So in the end, Canadians will care more about Canadians, and that is NOT aberrant behavior.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
Cooling much more likely than warming http://www.personalliberty.com/conservative-politics/the-global-warning-on-global-warming/?eiid=
Synchronizing stop lights across the US = one less nuclear power plant