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The Motivated Rejection of Science
Layzej writes "New research (PDF) to be published in a forthcoming issue of Psychological Science has found that those who subscribed to one or more conspiracy theories or who strongly supported a free market economy were more likely to reject the findings from climate science as well as other sciences. The researchers, led by UWA School of Psychology Professor Stephan Lewandowsky, found that free-market ideology was an overwhelmingly strong determinant of the rejection of climate science. It also predicted the rejection of the link between tobacco and lung cancer and between HIV and AIDS. Conspiratorial thinking was a lesser but still significant determinant of the rejection of all scientific propositions examined, from climate to lung cancer. Curiously, public response to the paper has provided a perfect real-life illustration of the very cognitive processes at the center of the research."
What do they know about anything??? This study just proves what I knew all along - the scientists are all in collusion with each other AND the government to take my gas and my guns and my cigarettes!!!
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
Once upon a time the capitalist system, a tremendous advance over the feudal system of property that preceded it, drove an unprecedented expansion of scientific and technical progress.
Now capitalism is in its imperialist epoch of terminal decay, dragging humankind into a new dark ages. Only the proletariat can save humanity by smashing the power of the bourgeoisie and inaugurating the socialist future! Workers to power!
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When a certain in-duh-vidual started claiming there was mercury in vaccines & even RFIDs, I pointed-out that mercury was removed years ago. I also politely asked for proof of the RFIDs.
At first the guy said I need to do my own research, and I said I already did, but I've found nothing. Then he blew up and started calling me nasty names & other bullshit.
These conspiracy persons have more problems than just lack of faith in scientific research. They have emotional/anger management issues. Of course that also means I won the argument..... he never did provide proof that vaccines have RFIDs in them.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
You, Sir, are what is known as a "data point".
Seems obvious to me we're talking about a group of people who are willing to believe what they are told to believe or give in to ideas because one makes them feel better or less uncomfortable.
It kind of describes a lot of people, but primarily, it describes the religious faithful.
We notice that all of the mentioned 'science' issues are tied to public policy positions of the left and that the 'scientists' are working outside their areas of expertise when they push policy solutions to the problems they 'find.'
Whole lines of research were simply forbidden as career ending. Consipracy theories almost always pop up in vacumns of fact, especially when it is pretty obvious that facts are suspected but being supressed.
So... is your post some kind of satire, or what?
Anyone that rejects AGW, vaccination of children, evolution, the earth not being the center of the solar system, or any other of the misguided beliefs the right seems to cling to is, quite simply, ignorant. When an overwhelming majority of scientists give you incontrovertible evidence and you scramble to rationalize your beliefs any way you can rather than doing the logical thing and accepting that you may have been mistaken, you are letting stubbornness and ego cloud your judgment. You might as well be living in the dark ages.
I do not "reject" science as my socialist detractors may claim. Rather, I merely withhold my currency from the marketplace of ideas in order to incentivize the production of science more in line with today's consumer preferences!
Leave it to Slashdot commenters to provide free evidence for the study!
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
I am elated that this immediately stunk to all ./ posters thus far in this thread. What a Freaky Friday storyt!
For every benefit you receive a tax is levied. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
You are a perfect example of the type of conspiracy theorist that the article is talking about. Congratulations for being so unwittingly on topic.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Really? He had to do a study to conclude that people who believe in the free market reject attempts to replace it with a state-run economy?
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
A lot of people simply want to set up a social environment where the strongest can exploit the weak. They do this either because they already have strength or because they believe they can reach for that rainbow.
It is said that we should not attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence. But your captains of politics and corporate welfare aren't incompetent - they're smart as hell and I'm sure they know exactly what they're doing.
I haven't been overly paying attention to it but it seems to me that most of the "vaccination of children" was more lefty new age bs.
Are you suggesting that the earth is the center of the solar system?
Many will question science.
The same people will not question how their smart phone works or the wonders of physics, electronics, ergonomics, materials and programming they represent, let alone the fact you can't see the radio waves, but the thing works.
Selective science is what people are all about these days. We'll pick and choose what we'll accept, let our children be taught, but we won't let our eye stray to the advances of science which have brought us the vehicles, clothing, entertainment and electronic devices we take for granted.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
From the mouth of an amateur politician.
From one of the linked articles:
"More than 1000 visitors to blogs dedicated to discussions of climate science completed a questionnaire"
I'd agree that it is probably a fairly good representation of those deeply involved in the debate, who read those blogs and are willing to take time to do the survey.
How much it says about the general populace is a different question. And notably one the researchers don't try to answer.
This is a classic example of taking a study about a sample of a limited population and broadly generalizing it in the submission write-up for slashdot.
That's right, the only possible way to disagree with the study is if you are opposed to science. A study that took as data online polls on blogs. Yep, some sound science right there. (/sarcasm)
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
"Global warming" as the term is generally used is not science. It's a political program. It's true that measured temperatures are higher than the last hundred years or so. That's a fact. But the "why it's happening" is not science, it's conjecture (I deliberately don't use the word theory, because I respect theory). IMHO it's not useful to lump belief or disbelief about global warming in with distrust of vaccines. In any case the root is the same--a growing distrust of authority, especially governmental authority, as government less and less appears to be capable of solving the big social and economic problems of our time. Combine this with the dismantling of public education and what other outcome could you expect?
Its remarkable how many people criticizing this study have concluded the authors are socialists. How do you know? What is your evidence? You have already made up your mind that these researchers are just colluding with other scientists to make a political point that deniers of science are conspiracy nuts.
But you have no evidence at all. How many of you have already run off and read the paper yet... thoroughly? And yet, here you are condemning it. Wow! Good way to prove the authors point but announcing a conspiracy when you see science you don't like (but haven't read). Their work has just been beautifully f*$king demonstrated here in the comments section of /.
What other people think of me is none of my business
correlation is not causation.
This "study" is heavily polluted by republican propaganda. Did these test subjects come to these conclusions under their own accord, or were they influenced by right leaning media (Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, etc.).
People feel the need to identify with social groups, and therefore may be influenced by others in their social group. In my opinion, it's why people align along party lines. In other words, I suspect the cause is social, not neurological, as implied above.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
At most a climitologist can rightfully say the Earth is warming, CO2 is the cause and human activity is the likely cause of the increase of CO2. Beyond that they should say NOTHING. Other scientists, in other fields, are qualified to evaluate proposed policies.
Que? A climatologist is best positioned to evaluate a proposal to see how it may affect the climate.
The second they use the cloak of science to push policy solutions they aren't scientists anymore, they are amateur politicians. Emphasis on the amateur.
Oh, it seems that you are confused by the meaning of "politician". For one thing, all good politicians are "amateur" - a professional politician is the worst sort.
Next, a politician isn't someone who creates "policy solutions". A politician in a representative democracy represents the voice of the people. He selects from the among the expert proposals the ones which align with the people's wishes, puts them forward to a legislature, listens to the alternatives, debates them, and ultimately votes on them in line with the wishes of those he represents.
To recap: a politician does not create solutions. He is not a professional in any particular field. He can't be - he's voted in as a voice of the people, not an expert on a particular thing.
Personally, I'm fairly sceptical about psychology research, but if you begin your analysis of scientific issues with a crude left/right dichotomy you're bound to come up with some way off answers. The AGW science looks pretty solid to anyone coming to it with an unbiased eye, notwithstanding Mann's dubious practices. Conspiracy theory is necessary to those who deny the evidence because it is the only way of explaining the scientific consensus.
Who said it was "surprising?" Science doesn't need to always produce unexpected results. Furthermore, I have no doubt that if someone were to just assume any of the things demonstrated here, such as someone saying "Free market ideologues are much more likely to reject scientific results that are challenging to their worldview", you'd be the first to demand they prove it with research. So it's good someone went ahead and tested it and wrote it up, so that you don't even need to make that demand.
This research (and how it has been reported to the public) is an example of an ad hominem attack (in this case, an attack against free market "ideology").
It's funny how idiots like you use words like "socialist", "left(y)", and "liberal" as if they're some sort of insult.
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
Stubbornness and the ability to cling to your ideas/ideals in the face of overwhelming evidence/facts is seen as a good thing these days.
God forbid anyone be able to actually consider alternatives based on presented evidence/facts and change a stance on an issue, you'd be known as a flip-flopper!
or any other of the misguided beliefs the right seems to cling to is, quite simply, ignorant
While I agree, it's important to note that the left can be equally stupid. Most of the "People are allergic to WiFi" and/or "Vaccines are dangerous" and/or "My naturopath can cure cancer" fools are on the left.
Its a good idea to have scientists advising politicians on science. They know a HELL of a lot more about science than politicians.
I mean, we just had a guy on a congressional science committee forcefully and publicly proclaim that women emit some kind of magical substance to prevent pregnancy when "legitimately" raped.
I think that this pretty clearly shows that we need more science in political discussions about science. Just because Akin is a "professional" politician does not mean that he is suddenly great at making political decisions regarding science on his own.
And hell, we all know that if scientists completely divorced themselves from the political and social ramifications of their work, that you would be whining to high hell about how scientists isolate themselves in their ivory towers and can't communicate with the public. But if they do communicate their results to the public and talk about real world ramifications you get upset that they might be influencing politics directly related to their work.
Many people have a severe fear of losses in social positions, income or status. This applies to climate change issues just as it applied to the civil rights movement. In 1950 the white population was hostile to other races advancing due to a fear that a loss of power would result. Gradually the white population has learned that people of another race doing a bit better really does not threaten them much at all.
Now with climate science it becomes obvious that vast changes in lifestype will almost certainly become compulsory. The era of the MacMansion has decayed. The era of large engined cars is ending. Obviously people in the auto industry will feel fear of job losses and people in the construction industry face even greate fears. After all how can you build spiral staircases for smaller more efficient homes. How about those fancy showers with a dozen spray heads and a booster pump to gain enough pressure to consume all of the water needed to push them as well as a hot water heater so large that only three of them will do?
And it just keeps multiplying. Build a well insulated home and only tiny AC units will be needed. Build a car that weighs only 1000 lbs and a lot less tires will be sold. Build electric cars or hybrids that can plug in and gas stations will take a huge hit. Extract hydrogen and the oil industry will collapse.
So the investor class and the working class all have great fears of loss of dominance. That is why things move so slowly.
With the free market bit I don't think that they are labeling anyone as crazy. Rather, they seem to be suggesting that free market proponents will dismiss evidence that counters their established views, which is probably true of many people who hold ideologies.
One interesting aspect of the report is that the conspiracy theorists tend to side with the corporations over science. While I do see how this is an attractive conspiracy, I would think that people would be more likely to think that the companies are conspiring against science to further their economic goals.
It was actually Earvin "Magic" Johnson who was declared HIV positive. And yes, he has remained AIDS free. While I personally find this miraculous to the point of incredulity, I'm willing to believe he has a good combination of genetics, a fantastic health regimen, and lots of money for experimental drugs to stave off full-blown AIDS. For the record, there are recorded cases of people who live with the HIV virus and never show symptoms without taking ANY special medication.
I swear they give me mod points to shut me up.
I hear what you're saying and it sounds like "stop oppressing the ultra-rich!"
Everyone, prodded hard enough, can be shown to hold dear some unsubstantiated hypotheses about the world.
But someone on the right has the ultimate aim of helping themselves, either convinced or pretending to be convinced that it'll help other people if everyone strives to help himself. This is an ego-increasing exercise, and too much ego produces an insane amount of self-belief. Self-belief is the origin of faith or conspiracy or whatever you want to call it. This is why conspiracy theories on the right are very well-organised: there is a tremendous amound of unwarranted self-belief.
Those on the left do have their own conspiracy theories, but they tend to be a lot weaker and less organised. This is because it's hard to reconcile "be selfless and love one another" with "here's this thing I think and I have no evidence for it but I am quite convinced in myself". Selfless objectivity and subjectivity tend not to mix. Leftist conspiracy theories are thus more a failure of mind than inherent to the principles of their politics.
What is it that makes you say they are political hack poseurs? Do you have a criticism of their methodology, or is it just that you don't like what they're saying? The paper doesn't seem to be relying on the theory of climate change being true.
I think it's cute that you're upset at a debasemt of science, as you reject scientific findings based on your gut feelings.
One imagines Jmorris1 arguing in the vatican that Galileo Galilei should be punished for besmirching the honor of science and astronomy by clearly promoting falsehoods.
To believe that science is right and at the same time that man didn't land on the Moon would be a contradiction. No surprises here.
We notice that all of the mentioned 'science' issues are tied to public policy positions of the left and that the 'scientists' are working outside their areas of expertise when they push policy solutions to the problems they 'find.'
Whole lines of research were simply forbidden as career ending. Consipracy theories almost always pop up in vacumns of fact, especially when it is pretty obvious that facts are suspected but being supressed.
So... is your post some kind of satire, or what?
Bloody good question. These right wing nut jobs are so far out there these days that it's hard to tell the satirists from the real deal.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
You're talking about people's religious beliefs running contrary to scientific fact. Emotional versus rational thinking.
That's what Dawkin's, Shermer, and Armstrong don't seem to get - religion isn't about rational thought: it's about feelings. And most humans will trust their feelings over that facts - they are emotionally attached to their World view. They let their feelings overrule what their head says. That's why you have paleontology Ph.D.s throw everything they learned out the door so that they can still believe in the literal truth of the Bible (Dawkins talks about him in his "God Delusion" book) - the science is wrong not God's word. That paleontologist is hardly ignorant - especially about Evolution - but he still chucked everything out the door.
And that's where most unbelievers don't understand, they are trying to state a rational argument for an emotional one. And that's where the believers fail miserably - they try to stand toe to toe with science and try to challenge facts with a book of fairy tales and myths.
There will never be an agreement. The only thing that can be done is just keep hammering folks with the data and eventually some will come around and the rest are doomed. to believing in their stories. But if that give comfort to them, if their delusions don't harm anyone else, then who gives a shit. But it's when they start trying to legislate their irrationality on others - like teaching "Intelligent Design" or "the controversy about Evolution" - is when they need to be stopped.
It's fine for yo to believe in Santa Claus, but don't you dare try to force those beliefs with law - like teaching Creationism in school.
The science issues are not tied to public policy positions of the left.
The public policy positions of the left are tied to the science issues.
There's a considerable difference.
Jordan had the best HIV and AIDS preventative treatment in the world. and even common people are living for decades without going into terminal immune states if they have the insurance to afford the hundreds of thousands of dollars in treatments. HIV is now something that one can be expected to live a long life with if they stick to a strict treatment plan. That is a terrible example.
What areas of scientific inquiry are simply forbidden as you say?
I predict exactly zero rational discourse will be inspired by this study, on either side.
Its a mixed bag of nuts on that topic.
The conspiracy theorists, of course, have been quick to spin counter-theories about this work.
http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/lewandowskyCCCresponse1.html
http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/lewandowskyVersionGate.html
mt
Anyone who disagrees with me is an idiot!
Disagree? See you proved my point!
Or:
This story is the globalists trying to justify their lies with the only thing they can: BS.
See what I mean?
Drill baby drill - on Mars
You do realise that your credibility degrades every time that you fail to spell 'climatologist' correctly? Do you also realise that you have no expertise in the field of climatology and have very little right to comment on what climatologists "should" be doing? Potentially you also realise (but I doubt it) that politics and science is inextricably linked when business is involved?
The fun part they didn't apparently check is that the 'Free Market' folks are also going to be the most likely to deny evolution....which is the ultimate 'free market'.
Ooooo the irony...
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Bullshit. You doubt AGW because it means having to actually do something that costs money.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I agree with you. those are HONORABLE things to have in your personality.
for some reason, there is a lot of inertia in the now-loaded terms you listed. its amazing to me that these good attributes have been turned upside down by the religious right (mostly its them that I blame).
I view this like a pig rolling around in shit. happy, but still rolling around in shit.
when ignorance is seen as a positive attribute, you've just jumped the shark.
reminds me all too much of when smart kids are picked on in school. the mentality is understandable for kids, but NOT for adults! adults should know better but sadly, the culture of ignorance encourages them to stay dumb.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
And there it is, right before our eyes. Care to speak a bit about versiongate and the Monash conspiracy?
Do you really believe that groups of people, regardless of their level of psychological commitment to any idea, are capable of convincing literally thousands of people in their own profession, aligned professions and knowledgeable bystanders to simply ignore facts and evidence, and to promulgate, knowingly, wrong information, proudly, authoritatively, and consistently without error.
And then, granting this is even possible, they're able to recruit entirely new generations of people, people who may not even have been born when the "lie" was originally concocted, to repeat the same lies, over and over, to not ask questions, to not pursue the truth, to simply obey, mindlessly, and to do so for nothing more than the remuneration of the occasional government grant (which they gotta fight like hell for regardless).
The problem is, if you all of this as true, you've successfully killed the Enlightenment and any principle of self-government through reason and debate. If conspiracies decide what the popular mind accepts as "fact," we might as well have kings and clerics decide the best course of action, because democracy in such a world is pointless. The people are sheeple, the books are cooked, and votes are a waste of energy, energy that could be more effectively spent by elite, autocratic decision makers.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
In pdf research paper file: 1. Isn't this a stereotypical jump towards conclusion of this paper? Is N = 1377 and then 1145 enough? Why didn't he mentioned the sample size in his abstract? 2. Why there is no graph or table? 3. Are not the believes of "no link of CO2 to climate" and other subject hold some truth behind? 4. Why the weak researcher cannot prove their point in simple words to public just like all we believe and understand and see the moon, sun, days and nights? 5. Is the idea of free-market economics not part of science, are there no observations and scientific facts on the other part. Are all variables covered and counted that resulted in linking climatic change to CO2 emission. 6. As per stereotypical view adopted in this paper, i cannot find any link between scientific believes and the topic name ' Motivated rejection of science' 7. Isn't this paper like a = b, and b = c hence x = y By answering these points this paper can prove its self.
Please provide a scientific definition of race before you process down that couse.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
This "story" is just one big ass troll isn't it?
Nah, you're thinking of "Shrek".
Koans and fables for the software engineer
Kooks reject climate science, therefore all who reject climate science are kooks.
In 4th grade I learned that that piece of "logic" doesn't hold water.
Ah. If right-wingers promote a conspiracy it's a right-wing issue, but if left-wingers promote a conspiracy, it "isn't a right-wing or left-wing issue".
If you really don't think the anti-vac crowd, the 9/11 Truthers, or Michael Moore count as left-wing conspiracy theorists, then people who reject climate change or the link between cigarettes and cancer shouldn't count as right-wing conspiracy theorists either.
Also, many of the HIV conspiracy theorists are actually left-wingers as well. Look at Louis Farrakhan, for a famous example. (Wikipedia leaves it out, but interestingly they do mention he's a conspiracy theorist about the flu vaccine.)
That's like saying a butcher is best positioned to evaluate how much meat someone needs to throw a successful barbeque.
Which they are.
I'm sure what you're saying is, "But uh there's a butcher conspiracy and they'll all say AS MUCH MEAT AS POSSIBLE because that'll make them rich!"
Except that - and I thought this is what you free markedroids always argue when you say that All Regulation Is Evil - it's in no butcher's interest to lie about how much meat someone needs, as then they'll stop being trusted and no-one will listen to them any more.
Not that the analogy is valid, of course, as a climatologist is a lot more likely to get big funding from big business if he sells out his soul and says "global warming doesn't exist.. err I mean has nowt to do with humans yo" than if he gets paid a government wage to tell the truth.
Well said J. "Climate Science" has long since lost its credibility regarding global warming and its causes. This is what happens when "prostitutes" just put their Ph.D. signature on whatever preconceived notions a funder may have. Also detrimental to the field are the attempts to justify throwing away raw data. Contrary to what these types insist, it is NOT normal to throw raw data away. Yes, raw data frequently needs to be preprocessed. However, there are many many ways to preprocess data. It is NOT normal to just pick one method and then throw the raw data away. A further detriment are the obvious attempts to keep objective discussion out of the literature. These comments come from my experience as a Ph.D. in industry. Preconceived notions do not make profit in that context. One has to focus on objective truth so that actual problems can be solved. Otherwise, original products and services can not be produced and evolved.
Since you must have read the paper to come to those conclusions, which survey questions in particular do you take issue with?
Its a good idea to have scientists advising politicians on science. They know a HELL of a lot more about science than politicians.
No, not really. It is good to keep scientists around to tell the public when politicians are horrifically wrong scientifically, but there is no reason that scientists should be "advising" a politician. When you mix scientists in with politicians, you lose the scientist. You can't run public policy by the scientific method, or else you would get nuanced versions of healthcare bills with enough exceptions to fill 10^9 pages of text. You also can't investigate the universe with politics, or else you get things like Lysenkoism.
The system we have works best when scientists educate the public of their caveated findings, and the public decides what it wants. When scientists start advising politicians, and wielding the false-flag of scientific authority from a political platform, you get the same problem as mixing religion and politics.
I swear they give me mod points to shut me up.
Questions about vaccinations were actually valid when it came to mercury in thiomersal. However with that preserving agent no longer in use in Western countries (with the exception of multi-dose flu vaccine vials, and increasingly being banned in 3rd world countries as well), those concerns are far less valid. Nevertheless, for some diseases, vaccinations are justified on the basis of rare complications yet those complications become almost non-existent with good nutrition. It's not unreasonable to ask whether the potential risks of unnecessarily stressing the immune system outweigh the diminishing benefits for those specific cases.
Concerns regarding the necessity and justification for vaccines applies to a small subset of the recommended vaccination list. Yet with increasing prevalence of immune-dysfunction related diseases, it's a question that is scientifically significant but is being ignored for two reasons: a) a concern of a slippery slope that acknowledgement of the issue will needlessly feed fears and avoidance of vaccines where there is significant demonstrable benefit, and b) the substantial financial interests of the pharmaceutical companies involved.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
It is interesting to me how the topics are chosen to determine what is rejection of science and what is not. For example this week another study came out that organic is not healthier than conventional, yet the anti-free market people reject that science as bogus.
I reject the idea that CO2 is going to cause global warming, but accept lung cancer is caused by smoking and AIDS by HIV. I ignore the creationists, but accept that they are free to believe what they want to on that, but evolution all the way for me.
I have also been an R&D engineer for more than a decade. Somehow the idea that because I accept free-market principles instead of central planning indicates that I am anti-science is total bullshit.
Of course since this is a peer-reviewed paper I could be labeled as anti-science for not accepting this paper, but that is something I am willing to risk.
> Its a good idea to have scientists advising politicians on science.
Agreed. But when debating the policy implications of AGW a climatoligist is useless. What insight can they offer into whether cap and trade is a good idea? They aren't economists. If the conversation turns to carbon sequestration they aren't the person to ask whether that is feasable. If we want to talk alternative energy they can't provide any insight on that either. You need different scientists and experts to answer those questions. Climatology is a pretty narrow specialty.
Democrat delenda est
No. I have looked into the HIV/AIDS thing enough to be willing to bet that if it isn't the entire story it is pretty close to it. But when the banhammer came down in the 1980s on any dissent (the science is settled! Settled I say!) there was still some room for doubt.
You mean, the AIDS denier Peter Duesberg? This guy: http://www.sciencemag.org/site/feature/data/cohen/266-5191-1642a.pdf
This 1980s "ban" on dissent you mention-- you mean the one that allowed him a major article in 1989, "Human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome: correlation but not causation" in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences? That "1980s" ban?
Pretty ineffective "ban" I'd say, since he continued publishing his theories well into the 2000s, long long after they were thoroughly discredited. Turns out, the science actually was settled, and, well guess what-- the scientific researchers really did know what they were doing.
Duesberg has the unique distinction among wackos, though, that his rhetoric of "HIV doesn't cause AIDS so go ahead and have sex even if you're HIV positive, it won't hurt anybody (but don't take those antiviral drugs!)" actually did result in killing large numbers of people.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
... willing to believe...
Your belief is faith-based?
^^ Still waiting for that actually. Most evidence given has been controverted in some fashion, and it isn't even an overwhelming majority of scientists saying that (not that science is run by a voting system in the first place).
I swear they give me mod points to shut me up.
If you're a Socialist, you find data on problems which apparently require Socialist solutions to be very convincing and meaningful. If you're a Free Marketer, you find data on problems which apparently require Free Market solutions to be very convincing and meaningful. Don't confuse yourself into thinking that the Socialists are "more scientifically minded" than the Free Marketers: oil shortages, food shortages, mass starvation, global cooling, the hole in the ozone, The Population Bomb, The Silent Spring. Those were all phony manufactured crises from the 60's, 70's and 80's that were exposed before they could "make much social progress" with them.
The issue of Climate Change is WAY BIGGER than supposed rising tides and erratic weather, people. It's a fundamental battle between global political agendas. (All that being said, I'm a Free Marketer who is not a Climate Change denialist; I will fight against Socialist solutions to the problem though)
Remember how liberals rushed to embrace the science of "The Bell Curve" and figure out how to adjust social policies in accordance with science, while conservatives claimed that the scientists who wrote the book couldn't be trusted to be fair and rejected it? Neither do I.
The link between conspiracy theorists, whether it be bithers or 9-11 truthers, and suspicion of science is obvious.
For free-market types the connection may be a little more difficult, but I can easily imagine why it would be so. Science is performed by humans - and humans have their own goals. Government is the same way - it is made up of individuals who have their own goals. If you're the kind of person who believes people are can be trusted to put aside their own goals and can thus be trusted with a lot of control over your life as government, you're probably the kind of person who believes scientists would never lie, mislead or exaggerate to further their own careers. On the other hand, if you think people are generally selfish and the best way to deal with that is to make selfishness work for the good of all, you're probably going to distrust scientists who claim to be selflessly working for the good of all.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
Except that HIV treatments have improved dramatically since the early 90's when Mr. Johnson (not Jordan) announced his diagnosis, with people being diagnosed today having a life expectancy slightly shorter than - but actually approaching - the general population. Of course, it depends on how quickly you start treatment after diagnosis, how far along your infection has progressed when you're diagnosed, your overall health, and your access to appropriate treatments.
But Magic Johnson has survived a bit over 20 years with his HIV under control; That's not even really an outlier based on today's prognosis - proper medication and treatment will turn it into a chronic, but mostly manageable, disease for many people. Given that Johnson was famous, rich, and presumably in excellent physical condition, it's not all that surprising that he'd have access to the best care available, and survive for a long time as a result.
You should probably also look up Long-Term Non-Progressors (HIV "controllers"), and the general natural history (infection process) of HIV. After initial infection, HIV typically enters clinical latency which can last up to 20 years (avg. of about 10 years, I believe). AIDS is only diagnosed when T-cell counts drop below a certain level, or one of the opportunistic infections associated with AIDS is diagnosed.
Given his diagnosis about 20 years ago, and the increasing efficacy of HIV treatments in the last 20 years... it's really not all that shocking that a young, healthy, rich man with access to the best care that money & fame can buy, and who also happens to be in excellent physical condition as a professional athlete, even if he's not a "controller," would be able to survive past his initial diagnosis for this long.
Using online polls limits the scope of the findings, it doesn't invalidate them, nor is it "bad science". It also doesn't mean this one study is the end-all authority on the matter. It's good information that can be collected into a larger view of things.
Have you read "The Bell Curve"?
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
... willing to believe...
Your belief is faith-based?
Is there any other kind of belief? I've never met anyone with HIV, and since the scare slowly died off in the 90s I've not spent any time thinking about HIV as I'm not a promiscuous person. So I'm actually somewhat lost on your point with HIV, I think it detracts from your other valid point about politicized science, tbh.
I swear they give me mod points to shut me up.
The trouble here is that you're treating "economics" as a science.
What's the point of having people who know what to do if they can't tell the people who decide what to do what should be done?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Remember when Lawrence Summers merely asked the question of whether genetic gender differences might be the cause of some of the disproportionate representation of genders in higher math?
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
What I mean is, that the research is defining and categorizing the symptoms, but underlying all of this (conspiracy theories, aversion to science, what-have-you) is paranoia. In my mind, the real question is, "why are people so susceptible to paranoia" and "is this susceptibility more prevalent today than in the past? (or does it just seem that way?)".
My hypothesis is that people spend more time reading snatches of this and that on the web, and simultaneously lack the ability to discern between those things that are factual, and those things which are not. Perhaps, when we see it displayed so neatly and convincingly on our computer screens, it looks "published" and therefore must be real/true -- it contains "truthiness". The problem is compounded by filter bubbles which funnel to people only those things they want to read, ignoring alternate points of view and research.
Proverbs 21:19
PS.
Leprosy? Epilepsy? People who contract many kinds of diseases don't get extra rights, but the government must to take action to make sure they are not discriminated against due to a pernicious folk belief that they are "unclean" or immoral.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
wasn't aware that anti-vaccination of children and the anti-heliocentric world view wre conservative viewpoints. thank you for painting with such a broad brush, and revealing your own biases AC.
how to get an instant +5 Informative on /. : equate the "right" with cavemen.
how to get an instant -1 Troll: dont equate the "left" with intellectual supermen
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
I think that point was covered indirectly. Free market capitalism is a religion.
Let's ignore things such as that different blogs were offered radically different versions of the survey to post (and the primary determinant of the differences seems to be whether the survey was being offered to a blog supporting AGW or denying it), though that by itself probably invalidates the results.
The main concern remains that out of a survey, of 1100 people only 3 skeptics strongly accepted, the conspiracies, and of these two were highly suspect (it's worth reading through the discussion). If this was just a paper in a journal, nobody would care. But again we see science by press relase, and pre-press release (Corner Guardian article). Do you really think it justified the heading of the paper, and the Telegraph newspaper headline? This is what drew attention to the paper, and this is what annoyed people.
Given the low number of skeptical respondents overall, these two possibly scammed responses significantly affect the results regarding conspiracy theory ideation. Indeed, given the dubious interpretation of weakly agreed responses, this paper has no data worth interpreting with regard to conspiracy theory ideation. It is my strong opinion that the paper should be have its publication delayed while undergoing a substantial rewrite.
The rewrite should indicate explicitly why the responses regarding conspiracy theory ideation are in fact worthless, and concentrate solely on the result regarding free market beliefs (which has a strong enough a response to be salvageable). If this is not possible, it should simply be withdrawn.
I daresay Lewandowsky must have cheated on his exams on experimental design and statistics as a student.
PS Lewandowsky's choice of a title is, and should be, far more damaging to his reputation as a scientist than the other flaws in his paper. The title of the paper smacks of political activism and sensationalism, not professionalism.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
A reasonable post questioning lefties gets modified 30 troll and 10% flamebait (only 20% insightful - where's the other 40%?). This too is, unfortunately, not surprising. Slashdot moderation is slipping.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
Careful, there. There's a broad spectrum of rejection. Anyone who says that humans haven't affected the climate at all is ignorant. However, this still leaves many questions for which the answers are less than adequate:
And so on. But the biggest reason so many people doubt AGW entirely (which is probably going too far) is because there are so many vocal AGW proponents who cross the line into loony wing-nut territory by suggesting utterly implausible theories like a "runaway greenhouse effect" (despite the greenhouse gasses being lower than at many points in our planet's history), using AGW as an excuse to push the progress of technology backwards through forced electrical conservation and light bulb bans rather than forwards by funding improvements in clean power generation or pushing for coal bans, trying to convince everyone to use horribly time-inefficient short-range public transportation instead of pressuring automakers to improve fuel efficiency or pressuring them to move to all-electric designs or pressuring governments to make traffic lights more efficient or pushing for pro-telecommuting legislation and policies, etc.
In short, the AGW proponents did this to themselves with their Greenpeace-esque agenda of causing the biggest negative impact on the most people to artificially raise awareness instead of pushing for changes that maximally improve the problem with minimal negative (or even positive) impact. I have no real sympathy for them now when they whine that nobody is listening.
Maybe when we get some believable AGW proponents (scientists) in the foreground and stop letting the extremists abuse AGW to promote their own twisted political agendas, things will start to improve.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
There are a number of words that point towards groupthink.
"Lefty" and "lib" are just two of them.
Selective science is what people are all about these days. We'll pick and choose what we'll accept, let our children be taught.
Just like with the Bible. It's one of the most selectively followed tomes ever.
What areas of scientific inquiry are simply forbidden as you say?
Medical Marijuana research.
What?
People who have anal sex are obviously more at risk because the likelihood of transmission is much higher than with vaginal sex.
No-one denies this. HIV awareness campaigns often focus on gay men for this reason. Few people are in denial about it any more. Indeed, some gay men have had it so pounded into them that "being gay will get you AIDS" that subcultures have formed decided they're going to get HIV anyway, so might as well not use protection. This is quite sad, but it's by the bye.
Perhaps you're going for the "faggots are promiscuous lol" angle, in which case I invite you to work out how widespread HIV would be if gays had as much random unprotected anal sex as straight people had vaginal sex.
It was actually Earvin "Magic" Johnson who was declared HIV positive. And yes, he has remained AIDS free. While I personally find this miraculous to the point of incredulity, I'm willing to believe he has a good combination of genetics, a fantastic health regimen, and lots of money for experimental drugs to stave off full-blown AIDS. For the record, there are recorded cases of people who live with the HIV virus and never show symptoms without taking ANY special medication.
HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus, has been traced back to simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), which has been traced back to feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV), which has been traced back to bovine immunodeficiency virus (BIV). Some web hits.
If I understand things correctly, retroviruses tend, over time, to evolve to be less than fatal to the host. That's just basic selection pressure -- if a virus kills its host, it's lost its home; meanwhile, the selection pressure on host is to not be killed by the infection. At the extreme, quickly lethal diseases tend to burn themselves out, thereby self-limiting, much as seen with the Ebola virus, for which breakouts flare up, then ebb again as infected people die too quickly for the disease to spread. FIV tends not to be fatal to large cats, much as BIV tends not to be fatal to cows, water buffalo, and their ilk. I think SIV has similarly evolved to a more stable and less fatal plateau. There are already reported cases of people who test positive for HIV infection but who remain asymptomatic, even individuals without access to the broad array of medical treatments that Magic Johnson can avail himself of. At least one genetic mechanism has been identified that confers a resistance to certain types of HIV infection; it's possible that Magic Johnson has this particular mutation, or perhaps some other genetic quirk that helps his body keep HIV from running rampant.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
You must have never heard the tale of "The Emperor's New Clothes" when, in fact, it's the basis of the article.
You must have also never heard of "framing the question"
You do seem to spin the "Argumentum ad populum" and "Strawman" logical fallacies very well, however.
>All scientists believe in AGW. Do you agree with them, or are you an idiot who hates science?
As a cynical absurdist, I call it free thinking - a skeptical view of programming until it has been examined for the inevitable bias contained within anything humans do. To determine why something is done will help one interpret the real intent and purpose of a publication, movie or any other programming. To imagine that there is anything that does not contain bias is ludicrous.
and notice the racial characteristics of Olympic winners
What is a racial characteristic, please? Is it dusky skin? A hooked nose, maybe? Please, enlighten us. Try not to cite too many German texts from early or mid C20.
Shit, it'll be the equinox soon. Almost autuum already.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Unsaid here are two related things: many reject "science falsely so-called," the malarkey put forth as "THIS IS SCIENCE!" when it has zero evidence behind it but lots (and lots) of suppositions; then there are the multiple times such "scientists" have outright lied to promote their favorite notions. In summary, these folks who prefer free markets are the folks WHO REMEMBER. Leave aside your insults and merely chew on that fact for a while.
Cranky educator.
Many will question science.
Praise Bob, I certainly hope so. Scientists question science. That's how science works.
The problem is when people just flat-out reject science, without questioning whether the science is sound or not.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
The funniest part is that any objective look suggests that Jesus leaned socialist.
That's strange; I thought it was Timothy Ray Brown the only man to be officially declared cured from AIDS. Apparently, he was cured 3 years ago as a result of a bone marrow transplant (to cure leukemia) from a donor with a rare genetic mutation that makes him/her immune to HIV. Brown was declared cured last July.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Wrong. It has and is being researched.
For any illness, there will always be people who are, for reasons we may or may not understand, immune. There will also always be people who, for reasons we may or may not understand, will become asymptomatic carriers.
Ever heard of the phrase 'Typhoid Mary'?
Conspiracy theories are no different than religion. You have True Believers who will continue to espouse their belief no matter how much evidence you provide to the contrary.
Before science figures out how some specific thing works exactly, it figures out how something works generally. It's just a matter of refinement over time, either due to new ideas, or new techniques.
People though the earth was flat. Over time, enough evidence was collected to show that the earth must be round. Now we know it's actually slightly egg shaped. And mindbogglingly, we still managed to somehow develop a Flat Earth Society.
Or look at gravity. We still don't know how it works, but we know that it produces an acceleration effect of approx 9.8 m/s when standing on the surface of the earth, we know that it is somehow related to mass, etc.
You can extrapolate my point to pretty much anything else science has discovered, including evolution, climatology, etc. The amount of evidence favouring evolution is so immense, that to deny it should be considered nothing short of mental illness. And yet people refuse to accept it with a fury that awe-inspiring.
But there will always be a group of people who choose to be willfully ignorant because, for whatever reason, they don't find such discoveries convenient to their world view. If people in this day and age are so stupid as to continue to believe that the world is flat, then what hope do we have for things more conceptually complex?
Conspiracy fact: On 9/10/01, the Pentagon's comptroller announced their auditing team had uncovered $2.3 trillion which was unaccounted for.
Conspiracy fact: On the morning of 9/11/01, a plane crashes dead center into the Pentagon's west wall, killing most of that auditing team and severely injuring the rest (the DIA's Financial Management staff).
It's really just the same for the other side. There are plenty of honorable characteristics about what you call the far right, conservatives, or republicans.
Both sides have drawbacks, fallacious logic, and shortsightedness in their positions and ideas. To use a label as an insult, when it only represents a set of ideals, is just bigotry.
Fucking Liberal. Fucking Republican. Neither one of them is justified. While some ideologies and concepts might truly be mutually exclusive, it is just depressing that we have all this vitriol between them. No one wants to work together to find an intelligent solution and middle ground, and meanwhile, we sink further into the shitter.
The whole article is +5 Troll and just designed to stir up every demographic on Slashdot that it can.
I believe we call that science, and while I've been a believes of climate change since at least 1970, I defintely have read, and completely reject, the Warren Commssion Report, the 9/11 Commission Report, the Peterson Commission on Foundations report, etc., etc., ad nauseum.
human activity is the likely cause of the increase of CO2
There's no "likely" about it. We know exactly where the C02 increase is coming from. Every year humans pull millions of barrels of oil out of the ground, billions of tons of coal, and trillions of cubic meters of natural gas. Then we burn them, and that releases carbon dioxide. Using the word "likely" implies that there's actually some uncertainty here or reasonable doubt. There are legitimate areas of debate (exactly how much it warm? how fast? what are the costs and benefits of various policies?) but when you question high-school chemistry and mathematics, you're engaging in precisely the kind of pseudoscience that the article is talking about. Implying that it's "likely" that human have added C02 suggests that it's likely humans haven't added C02. Which is an exercise in irrational, paranoid, conspiracy-theory type thinking. It's like saying that it's "likely" that NASA did put a man on the moon instead of staging the Apollo landings, or "likely" that the earth is round, or likely the North Pole is in the North and the South Pole is in the South, or "likely" that the government isn't secretly run by a cabal of powerful warlocks.
I've been doing voluntary political activism for forty years, and I still have yet to see any mythic "free market" anyplace.
This is a fallacy of guilt by association, and you are lumping together several different things for which there are independent arguments or criticisms hoping that the taint of one of those things will rub off onto the other topics.
This also shows in you an ignorance of the scientific method, where everything can and should be questioned, including anthroprogenic global warming (or "climate change" as it were). This isn't living in the dark ages, it is questioning the assumptions being used to meet the conclusions and not getting into the hype that the ends justify the means even if it is a righteous cause.
There may be something to AGW, but it is also legitimate to point out that there has been a whole lot of very bad science being performed on the topic that definitely should be called out on the carpet. Those who protect the incredibly lazy scientists who alter or cherry pick data, misapply physical science theories from other fields, or have their climate models questioned as grossly inaccurate and incapable of producing the published conclusions due to improper data analysis and underestimating margins of error should be dismissed and rejected. Much of that is happening in "climate science" and more. In a great many cases the margins of error with a proper data analysis are so huge that no reasonable conclusion can possibly be drawn from the proposed theory and no possible way exists to refute the theory presented in climate science. In other words, it becomes something more on the realm of faith and religion on the part of environmental activists than anything even remotely resembling science.
I can give specific examples of how climate science has been corrupted, and the largest problem is that money has become so pervasive on the issue that objective scientific investigations are difficult or even impossible. It is the politicization of the topic that is the problem, and has corrupted the science. Get back to an honest investigation using the scientific method and being objective about the results.... no matter what you get. Don't wildly overestimate the effects, saying things like by 2010 Miami, Florida will be 10 feet or more underwater (one earlier "prediction" by an activist from a few decades ago). When people go to Miami and see what it looks like today, those people who made earlier wild predictions like that are seen as lunatics and it destroys the credibility of the science being performed in that field.
Groups like oil companies should also be suspect when they try to engage in similar kinds of lousy scientific research doing similar kinds of practices justifying their results saying they are pretty much doing the same thing as the environmental activists. Strangely, they really are as well, even though it is just as lousy science and with just as little credibility as the activists are producing. Ordinary citizens see the whole debacle and treat everybody as just a bunch of nut cases and want to go on living their lives ignoring the whole discussion altogether except when public policy rears its head to do things like a "carbon tax" that has nothing at all to do with the actual science.
What gets people really starting to question the environmental activists is when they have a financial stake in the alternatives being produced. Al Gore, famous for his movie about AGW, has a direct financial stake in several alternative energy companies and in a trading house that works with carbon credits and trades on those credits. He may have invested in those companies and businesses in part because he really does believe in AGW (note... belief as in religious belief) but it certainly doesn't express any sort of objectivity that others on the outside of the argument can reliably use to come to their own conclusions.
At the moment, I'm not even sure it is possible to do objective science in regards to climate studies. A genuinely objective study certainly won't get much funding from any source as almost everybody who has money to send in that direction has a political stake in the argument... including various government funding agencies supporting such research or even non-profit philanthropic foundations. That is unfortunate as well.
One interesting aspect of the report is that the conspiracy theorists tend to side with the corporations over science
How do you know there wasn't a conspiracy by the conspiracy theorists to taint the data?
There are at least five important questions whose answers are needed to address whether cap-and-trade is a good idea:
1. How much effect would cap-and-trade have on GHG emissions?
2. What other direct effects would cap-and-trade have besides its effect on reducing emissions?
3. What would the climate impact be of the effects described in #1?
4. Would any of the effects described in #2 have climate effects, and, if so, what effects?
5. Does the net social benefit of the climate effects in #3-4, combined with the net social benefit of the non-climate effects described in #2, offset the net social costs of effects described in #2.
#1-4 are scientific questions. #5 is a question that, while there may be some scientific aspects of it (aside from those in the preceding questions on which it relies) is largely about subjective values.
Of the four scientific questions, two of them are questions specifically about climatology. So, while there's very good reason for there to be other scientists providing input, its pretty clear that climatologists have quite a lot to contribute on the question.
Since one of the scientific questions listed above is largely an economic one (#1) and one is partially an economic one (#2), there certainly is a role for economists advising on the issue as well. But that role is not exclusive of the role of climatologists, as there remain climatological questions that are important in addressing the utility of cap and trade (or any approach to climate change, since the effectiveness of the approach in addressing the core problem it seeks to address will always involve a question of climatology, even if it also involves other questions.)
No, but once someone else provides input on the degree to which sequestration is feasible and what other near-term environmental impacts that sequestration will have, your going to need to turn to climatology to answer what the net effect of the sequestration (both from the direct carbon reductions and indirectly through any environmental side effects) is likely to be on climate.
They certainly are the best positioned, once others answer what is feasible and what effects those options would have on GHG emissions and other environmental inputs, to provide insight on what those alternatives are likely to do in terms of climate. Which, when evaluating alternative energy supplies as a solution to a climate problem, is a pretty critical insight.
Its true that you need a variety of experts to address those questions.
Its not true that the need for other scientists to address those questions means you don't also need climatologists to address each of them.
Yes, but its pretty freaking central to evaluating options to address climate change, for reasons which should be intuitively obvious to the most casual observer.
grand parent post:
Anyone that rejects AGW, vaccination of children, evolution, the earth not being the center of the solar system, or any other of the misguided beliefs the right seems to cling to is, quite simply, ignorant.
modded 50% insightful, 40% negative.
parent post:
While I agree, it's important to note that the left can be equally stupid. Most of the "People are allergic to WiFi" and/or "Vaccines are dangerous" and/or "My naturopath can cure cancer" fools are on the left.
modded 100% offtopic.
Slashdot moderation is broken.
The mod system isn't perfect, but give it time -- the scores on posts tend to move around quite a bit on controversial threads, especially when they're still pretty fresh.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
In the science of praxeology, they don't claim to know the mechanisim of what makes humans tick. They just presume that the mechanisims behind human behavior is too complicated to prefectly predict in many areas, and then work from there. Even though this is not hard science, you can still make extremely usefull predictions about human behavior in society and in large groups, and what kinds of social structures favor optimum desired outcomes.
Anyhow, the point is that praxeology implies free markets for optimum economic success, and public benefit, and many of the AGW proposals addressing global warming fly directly in the face of this. So obviously something is screwed up somewhere. Especialy when they say that disaster is immenent, and that we need to have insane taxes, regulations, and global government right this second to fix it. Also, predictions about AGW fly all over the place ranging from 1 degree in 100 years to a catistrophic heating event in the next decade. Also, every time a new discovery is made ... like the amount plankton plays a role in the oceans, like methane generation in the soil ... their computer models go to hell, and they all go running back to redo them and recalculate. Even with people screaming loudly that the debate is closed. Also, why does the UN have a pannel on climate change? This is not a science orginisation, it is a political one ... at times there seems almost to be a desparate push as in, fuck it all to hell right now we must have a big co2 tax, or something similar this minute.
Federal law prohibits it. If it is than it is being done in violation of the law.
you are right, the grandparent made the same mistake and I didn't notice it.
YET I do not support government-funded science. In fact, I don't believe in government at all. (I am "athiest" with respect to political power, if you will.) Therefore I am fully in favor of free-market economics -- REAL capitalism, not the crony capitalism which passes for capitalism today. The kind of capitalism that has never truly existed on this planet.
So move to Somalia, and let us know how it works out.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
With climate change this becomes a very interesting case.
The climate scientists can (I caveat a bit, very nearly) prove AGW.
However, many of the solutions posited are ECONOMIC solutions designed to reduce the amount of CO2 output.
At this point the debate about solutions to global warming should look to Economists for evaluation of those proposed solutions, Climatologists are now not the experts who are needed to evaluate the proposed solutions.
But to take it in a different direction. If the solution proposed is Terraforming to deal with the impacts of global warming, much like solution the, um Economists from Freakanomics, came up with, then the experts needed would be Engineers in collaboration with Climate Scientists.
The reason "free-market" types totally lose it when discussing solutions to climate change is that the main solution proposed is a blasphemously fake free-market in CO2. Carbon markets are anethema to those who believe in free markets, they're more or less a free anti-market that governs the non-production of something instead of the production of it.
The solution I favor, and that I believe will be the successful one, is the natural move to alternative forms of energy. I think that advances in alternative energy (both lowering cost and increasing efficiency) will lead to clean electricity generation, and that electric vehicles (and/or hybrids) will be the norm in the next 20-30 years. I think all of this can happen without the burden of a carbon market.
The second they use the cloak of science to push policy solutions they aren't scientists anymore
Where do you prove that?
Democrat delenda est
Democrat must be destroyed. Are you talking about ending Democracy? Why? Likely you're just another Republican who spends too much of their time listening to angry men on the radio.
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
We doubt AGW because we have been given very solid fact based reasons to.
Let's see: nineteen different institutions on four continents are running global circulation models ("climate models") that show the relationship between human-generated carbon dioxide and temperature. They must all be conspiring to cover up the truth, right? And also to cover up some error in the original 1967 Manabe and Wetherald calculation, the prediction of which fits the data taken over the last fifty years. I know of five different groups doing global temperature measurements, using everything from ship-based measurements to balloons to satellites. They're all in cahoots too, I assume?
Yes, so far I'd say it does look like people-- you-- who reject the findings from climate science tend to also subscribe to conspiracy theories.
We see hacks like Mann protected from the consequences of his fraud with the 'Hockey Stick" and nay, even rewarded for it. Cleared from all wrongdoing by the same corrupt institution that turned a blind eye to Sandusky...
You mean, cleared from all wrongdoing by the eight corrupt institutions. You are aware that there have been eight different investigations of the alleged wrongdoings purportedly revealed by the stolen emails from the CRU at East Anglia, and that all of them said that there was no fraud? So your conspiracy includes the National Science Foundation and the UK House of Commons Science and Technology Committee.
Yep, you're indeed a data point confirming the study: people who reject the findings from climate science subscribe to conspiracy theories.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Science isn't a popularity contest. It isn't a case of saying "Well most people agree with this so it must be right!" Science is about evidence. When someone questions the veracity of a theory, you respond with the evidence, not with "Well most people agree with me!"
Now it's fine if consensus is how you want to deal with your beliefs, it is a valid way to do it. However don't go and then try and talk science. Science is NOT about consensus. It is a process for knowing about the universe.
"Leave it to Slashdot commenters to provide free evidence for the study!"
Two very big indicators -- the title and the very first, opening sentence of the abstract -- very strongly indicate that this paper is anything but unbiased:
"NASA faked the moon landing -- Therefore (Climate) Science is a Hoax: An Anatomy of the Motivated Rejection of Science"
Even among hardcore "conspiracy theorists", disbelieving in the moon landing is a rather extreme view. The immediate impression I get is that this isn't about correlations with "conspiracy theory" at all, but with extreme conspiracy theory. Which weakens their argument a good deal.
Extreme conspiracy theories of the kind mentioned ("The CIA killed Martin Luther King, Jr." and "NASA faked the moon landing" are not representative of conspiracies or conspiracy theories in general. Real conspiracies can and do happen. If you don't "subscribe" to at least "one or more" of the less extreme conspiracy theories that are out there, you are probably not a very rational person.
Then there is the first sentence of the abstract:
"Although nearly all domain experts agree that human CO2 emissions are altering the world's climate..."
The very first sentence of the paper is demonstrably false, and indicates a lack of understanding of the very science they cite. That doesn't bode well for the rest of the paper.
Last but far from least, their "study" was actually a survey of a self-selecting segment of the population that represents only a very tiny percentage of the total, and not at all likely to be representative. To anyone who ever studied statistics in school, that should be a giant red flag.
Why have the politicians at all if the scientists are telling them what to do?
Do you really believe that "scientists" do not have an opinion on the right way to solve all of the problems out there?
There is often a third way to win an argument:
You bring a larger number of your audience over to your point of view than your opponent does.
If someone insists on having an argument rather than a discussion that pretty much means that there is no way they are going to change their mind anyway, and the only reason to talk to them at all is if other people are already listening to them and falling for what they are saying.
...some gay men have had it so pounded into them....
I see what you did there.
Blank until
The Bell Curve was not written by people who were qualified to write about taxonomy. As statisticians, they used the word "race" in a way that no modern biologist would countenance and no geneticist would agree with. Even someone who has done first year university level biology should know that there is only one human race, since the Neanderthals died out. So what is the point you are trying to make? That a pair of Americans could still write a book, in 1994, that seemed to be a covert attack on black Americans and Jews?
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
When a rational person see a little boy laughing at the king's nakedness, he joins in. When a conspiracy theorist sees a little boy laughing at the king's nakedness, he arrests him for lese majeste and tortures him to discover his co-conspirators.
The resolution of "The Emperor's New Clothes" affirms the common sense of good people to not be taken in, and the minuscule amount of effort required to topple a fallacy, and the king's inability to change reality through sheer force of will. You can get a man to see five lights in a torture chamber, and in many parts of the world you can bribe someone to look the other way, but that doesn't strike me as compelling evidence for the practicality of what the OP suggests.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
"The debate about whether and how much genes and environment have to do with ethnic differences remains unresolved."
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
I'm a big free market economy advocate. I don't doubt there is global warming, I just doubt it's anthropogenic. Can we really do anything about it? There have been many articles written recently about increased solar flares, etc. It's much more likely Sol is causing global warming.
Most of the radical environmentalists I know are watermelons -- green on the outside and red on the inside. They use global warming or environmentalism as an excuse to push their Marxist/communist views.
"Politicians always tell the truth, when they're calling each other liars."
[citation needed]
If you read the New Testament, you will find that Jesus never advocated any political ideology, nor did He advocate any government policy. Simply advocating that you personally help others with your own time, talents and resources (as opposed to ordering other people to do it) is not the same thing as advocating for a policy of forced wealth redistribution. I don't call that "socialism" because that doesn't match the textbook definition of socialism, which is an economic regime under which the means of production are owned by the government.
And the part about Jesus not advocating any political ideology and not supporting any government policy goes for conservatives too.
In case of fire, do not use elevator. Use water!
Does "The Bell Curve" provide a biological definition of race? If so, could you kindly synopsize it so that we may then evaluate claims of race such as:
"West African sprinters, East African joggers, European power lifters, East Asian gymnasts."
Is West African a biological race? Is East African? Is European? Is East Asian?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Here is the actual paper. The methodology does not strike me as reaching a representative population:
Visitors to climate blogs voluntarily completed an online questionnaire between August and October 2010 (N = 1377). Links were posted on 8 blogs (with a pro-science
science stance but with a diverse audience)
I've done some checking and in fact I think it's the lower portion of your left ear lobe that is the center. Try not to shake your head so much it makes my GPS very confused.
That's why Saul of Tarsus very rapidly made a takeover bid for the new religion and got it back on track, and why the Protestants are always quoting "Saint" Paul "I hate faggots. Give me money" and not all that awful stuff about loving your neighbor (which is pure socialism).
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Absolutely. 'Killing in the name of' explains a fair chunk of all human misery.
Many will question science.
The same people will not question how their smart phone works or the wonders of physics, electronics, ergonomics, materials and programming they represent, let alone the fact you can't see the radio waves, but the thing works.
Selective science is what people are all about these days. We'll pick and choose what we'll accept, let our children be taught, but we won't let our eye stray to the advances of science which have brought us the vehicles, clothing, entertainment and electronic devices we take for granted.
I don't think it is so much cherry picking are you are suggesting, nor is it so much selective science. Climate studies are something that is a relatively new discipline and has only recently moved from more of an art form to something that can be quantified and measured. If you go back to even relatively recent history, most of what passes as climate studies were more qualitative evaluations and really didn't have any sort of scientific theory behind them at all. It has also been a very tough nut to crack in terms coming up with relatively simple theories because so much is happening at once. It wasn't until computers were common that the torrent of data could efficiently be processed in any sane manner to come up with reasonable conclusions, and sadly they are also working off of data sets that need to be manually entered... resulting in a great many errors that creep into the equation.
Longitudinal climate studies (aka a study that evaluates what is happening over the course of a great many years) has been especially hard to come by. We don't have 19th Century satellite telemetry to compare to things we are seeing today, so instead other secondary measurements are required. There are recorded weather measurements that go back a couple thousand years (some rather detailed weather observations happened in China going back to the 1st Century or even earlier and a some very detailed weather observations by the UK Royal Navy going back at least to the 17th Century... to give some examples) that can offer some data points, but those are also not really easy to compare to modern data very well either. There are some things like ice cores in Greenland, examining tree rings, or other similar kinds of studies that can be a bit more objective and can be compared to contemporary events, or observations like counting sunspots... something that has been done since about 400 BC (again by the Chinese) and reliably accurate counts that can be accurately compared to contemporary counts since the 17th Century.
There is something of a data set that can be used for climate models, but such models certainly aren't perfect and have a whole bunch of assumptions in them that deserve questioning as well, particularly because the predictions of those models are frequently unreliable.
Climate science is something almost everybody sees on a daily basis when they watch the evening news, but ordinary people get very skeptical when they get two inches of "partly cloudy" landing in their back yard. Forecasters are getting better and even long range forecasts such as predicting if we are going to have a generally mild, hot, or cold winter in a few months is something they are getting better at doing because the understanding of how the climate works is improving. Still, it isn't an exact science yet and shouldn't be treated as one.
Climate science in particular doesn't have the predictive powers as Einstein's theory of General Relativity, much less even Newton's laws of motion or Maxwell's equations of electrodynamics. If you want to understand why sane people won't question physical science theory, that is it in a nutshell. Write a computer program based upon the current knowledge of climate data and information we have and tell me how much snow will be on my front lawn on Christmas this year. You can't do that. On the other hand an astronomer can write a computer program to tell me precisely within an arc second or less where to
And it's darkly funny how those idiots are all the ones in politics...
I remember CFCs well. We eliminated them from our manufacturing in the UK, but we weren't allowed to report it in the company newspaper because the US end of the operation was still arguing that it couldn't be done, and we (and our Swiss technical partner) weren't allowed to be first.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
There's a reason why the same people who deny science also buy into the particular right-wing brand of free-market economics promoted by the Republican Party and libertarians, and the reason is that it's just another form of pseudoscience. It's part of a pattern of thinking (or lack of thinking, to be more accurate) that we see on the right, where people refuse to acknowledge basic realities that don't fit their worldview.
Republicans argue that they can somehow manage to balance the budget. Yet they advocate more tax cuts for the rich, they've signed a pledge that they won't raise taxes, and they won't identify the spending cuts they'll make to bring it all in line. To top it all off, they want to increase military spending. At the end of the day, it somehow has to all add up, and it doesn't. They're denying the basic principles of arithmetic.
Meanwhile the libertarians argue that they can somehow create an economic utopia by unleashing a sociopathic social order in which corporations are free to do whatever they want without oversight by the government. But we've seen what happens without a strong government, and the result is Somalia. Or Iraq. Or Afghanistan. A strong economy and thriving corporations require a government to provide infrastructure, security, and the rule of law. And we've seen what happens when corporations are allowed to do whatever they want; the result is disasters like the 2008 financial meltdown perpetrated by Wall Street speculators. Their entire premise is that we can just ignore political and economic realities and build a better world by following ideas from a series of poorly written economic fantasy novels.
Healthy political discourse requires disagreement and different views. But one end of the political spectrum just seems to have taken a break from reason. It's not just that they're rejecting science, they have an increasingly shaky hold on reality.
Sometimes the best way to "love your neighbor" is not to hand them a check every month, but to tell them to get off their lazy ass and get a job. There's a Jesus parable about teaching men how to become a fisherman, so they can get their own food rather than have to beg others for fish.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
I am a strong believer in free market economics. But I also believe that man is at least partly responsible for global warming and I am much less of a conspiracy theorist than most of the tin-foil hat crew here on /.
I think some people forget, or have not considered, that there are four major levels to the global warming discussion:
1) The fact of global warming, meaning that the average surface temperature has been increasing outside of known cycles. This is a question of fact, of observation, and though it is a complex one (average global temperature is not an easy thing to measure) it is solid. The only thing that can be questioned on this is if someone can find an error with the methods.
2) The theory of man made global warming, that the primary or exclusive cause of said warming is the increase atmospheric CO2 (also measured, which is easier to measure) that is caused by human emissions. Like any theory, this is always up for debate. If a better or more complete explanation can be found then it'll be replaced. That doesn't mean it is wrong, just that it could be, theories can always be wrong. You don't prove them true, you repeatedly show they aren't false.
3) The judgement/claim that this will be a net bad thing for humanity. This is based off of various theories, hypothesis and claims of what may happen due to this warming. Any change will have good and bad parts for humans, that's just how it goes, so someone can look at what they believe is likely as a result of the change and make a judgement that overall the change will make things worse.
4) The policy/politics position that the correct thing to do about this is to drastically cut CO2 emissions, institute cap and trade, and increase government control of industry. This is a policy view, not a science one. Science doesn't dictate what we must do, only helps us understand the world we live in. We then decide how to act on that. Nor is it the only proposition for what to do (other than do nothing, which is a valid option though perhaps a suboptimal one).
Well here's the thing: People can agree with some but not all of that. Someone can agree that the Earth is getting warmer, and that CO2 is likely the prime cause, but reject that it will be worse for humanity. Or they could agree that it will be worse for humanity but reject what to do about it.
However it seems many people want to lump it all together. A situation of "You have to accept that the Earth is getting warmer, the evidence is extremely solid. Once you accept that, everything else follows logically, you can't question the proposed solutions, they are science!" As such if someone rejects any part, they accuse them of being anti-science and blind to the observations.
"The fun part they didn't apparently check is that the 'Free Market' folks are also going to be the most likely to deny evolution....which is the ultimate 'free market'. "
I don't believe that the majority of purported "free marketers" are actually what they claim; I believe, that many who claim to be in favor of free markets, are mostly self-applying the label due to the usual American knee-jerk reaction to the "Socialism" bogeyman.
My run-ins with creationists in time fits this model rather well. They're not as much 'for' anything, as they are against its supposed polar opposite.
Then again, that does describe most people in the mainstream political chat-o-sphere these days...
I find if funny how dunning incompetents aren't able to realize that they have already exposed themselves as nut jobs and continue to bury themselves even further.
they're more or less a free anti-market that governs the non-production of something instead of the production of it.
In other words, when all you have are economists... everything looks like a market.
Perhaps our real problem is that everyone has become too specialized; they see the world from their point of view and can't understand how the world can look different to someone else. If we really want to get serious about solving society's problems, then we need society to do the solving. Societies are made up of politicians, scientists, economists, mechanics, teachers, clergy, merchants, even homeless people and kids. A real solution to climate change requires everyone, so that a proposed solution can be weighed for its benefits from all perspectives.
I'd be all for electing people who take the time to actually learn some science and manual labor skills in addition to (not instead of!) history, law, and economics.
Potato?
+----------------- | What is the question!
He can't be - he's voted in as a voice of the people, not an expert on a particular thing.
Very true, but he has to be literate enough to relay information from the experts back to the people. He needs to be like a UN interpreter, and speak many 'languages'...
But none that hardly matters since nobody will vote for such a person. What most voters are looking for is preferential treatment from the government.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I can't think of a bigger insult than "socialist."
"Capitalist"
Happy to help.
+----------------- | What is the question!
To be fair, everyone's a data point. Either you occur as an "event" with hypothetical null probability p, or you occur as the opposite of an "event" with hypothetical null probability 1-p.
Let q be a radix > 1. I am in ur base-q, killing 10 d00ds.
Its a good idea to have scientists advising politicians on science
Politicians don't care about science. They are megalomaniacs who are drunk on power (and worse the higher up you go in the power chain). They only care about the use of science to achieve their power, and getting votes is how they get power. They certainly will use or misuse science to get votes.
"The policie makers should make it their business to take advice from numerous scholars and wise men, well versed in a range of disciplines, weigh any tradeoffs and contradictions therein, and after thoughtful consideration of the same to synthesise a coherent, practical and implementable whole that furthers the common interests of those they governe upon." -- J Locke
"I just do what an old book says." -- P Ryan
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
What you call selective science is nothing new. In the past, people would not have denied that water wheels can generate power for grinding grain, or that water flows downhill. People accept what they are exposed to every day. They can believe in a cell phone's science because they have a cell phone and it works as described. If you really broke it down though, just about everyone who is not a cell phone designer/engineer/scientist accepts the science of how it works because they were told that is how it works and it *does* work. Ask them to replicate the needed experiments or express the underlying theories and they'd look at you funny.
I think the right wing fringe elements tend to get snickered at a lot because what they talk about sound particularly strange because their wacked out theories are based on what you would get if you were in a demographic that was less urban, more Christian, and hence a lot more Old World than Modern World. And don't get me wrong, people like that are wrong, wrong, wrong, and if they are Todd Akins, they are a facepalm inducing joke.
On the other hand, there is another sort of people who express bogus New Age bullshit, anti-vaccination rants, and sing praises of homeopathic or herbal remedies and they tend to get a pass. The thing is, their "science" often reads more like nothing more than an indictment of Big Pharma or whatever corporatist bogeyman is popular at the time. Heavy on the left wing politics, light on science. And the amusing thing I hear is when the right wing comes up with studies to support their case, almost invariably, someone looks for what company sponsored the research with the immediate implication that the scientists were bought. Perhaps some were, but in it's own way, that sounds as unfriendly to science as people who deny science. In this case, they just attack the scientists they don't like. Different tactic, same result.
So, when I look at a survey like this and it attaches "free market theorists" to "conspiracy theories", my guess is that what is considered a conspiracy theory itself is actually the issue. If you only believe that the theories generated by a right wing audience are the only kinds of conspiracy theories, then it's no surprise when you find that most "conspiracy theorists" are right wingers. And that is selective science too.
No it doesn't, by virtue of the fact that it does not.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
There is a 3rd way to win: convince the people who are undecided to ignore the crazy person.
You really can't win everyone over, especially if you are trying to debate them on individual issues rather than the deeper philosophy that drives them to distrust society, and accept crazy over scientific theory. But you can do your best to direct those who are undecided away from their crazy world view.
I think the quote from "Thank you For Smoking" nailed it:
In general, I think conspiracy theorists tend to have some deep issues that you can't really address at a surface layer. If I had to guess, it's the theory that we tend to blame our faults on external factors. "I'm a good, hard working person. I should be successful, but I'm not. Why? Someone must be working against me. The man is keeping me down! It's a conspiracy."
Your ignorance is showing
So you support a carbon tax, then? A true libertarian would admit that's the purest form of a free market solution you can find: correct the market distortion introduced by a negative externality by sending a price signal that internalizes the costs. Then let the market respond freely to that price signal to find the most cost-effective solution.
P.S. Your historical revisionism about "phony" past environmental problems is delusional.
Yes, it's a complex world and we must work with limited information. You seem quite smug about the banning of CFCs; do you feel the same way about the banning of DDT? This has killed an estimated 100MM people via malaria. The point is that Chicken Littles may occasionally be right but that doesn't mean that we should overreact out of panic and fear. This study also suggests that we should consider the political motivations of those presenting the evidence (and I'm pointing out that this is a two-way street)...
> Meanwhile the libertarians argue that they can somehow create an economic utopia by unleashing a
> sociopathic social order in which corporations are free to do whatever they want without oversight by
> the government.
I have to disagree with this chracterization as a bit too simplistic. Corps are legal fictions created through the power of the state. They are fictional entities which stand in the place of a person, to convey limited liability on the actual corp owners.
In fact, many libertarians are against limited liability at all. How this could, in any way, be described as pro-corperate, I just don't see. In fact, I can think of few things that would be less pro-corperate than elimination of limited liability.... it guts the entire concept of a corp.
Personally, as something of a libertarian myself (not entirely), I am not against its eliminatuon nor for it, because I see it as a useful pact with the government, and one which legitimizes regulation...afterall, they are fictional non-person entities, and are recieving a benefit for becoming such.... seems the government which offers this priviledge should be free to put whatever restrictions that they like on it.
In my view, I tend to say taxes are theft and extorition, not so with corp taxes...for that very reason.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
To recap: a politician does not create solutions. He is not a professional in any particular field. He can't be - he's voted in as a voice of the people, not an expert on a particular thing.
Unless said politician is a leader and is able to form policies that attract followers and support. (He may take other people's solutions, but he can also make his own).
It's not a one way relationship. Politicians respond to the people who vote for them, and the people respond to the politician's ideas and actions.
Furthermore, scientists may be experts on technical subjects, but the politicians are experts on creating consensus/compromise and getting society to buy into a desired policy. (Not that every politician does this well, but the experienced politician will be better at it than a random scientist)
That's funny, you can't put your finger on what exactly the difference is between the way the majority of swimmers look and the way the majority of sprinters look... hint the sprinters are about a 100 shades darker lol. I must seem psychic to you that I can tell whether someone either is from Asia or has Asian ancestors. I can even use my magic to tell whether they're from Korea, vietnam, Japan, or China. Maybe you also can't tell the difference between a golden retriever and a yellow labrador? Or maybe you just don't like the use of the word race to describe those obvious physical differences, that last one is a genuine question.
Perhaps if they went to a better university and/or made it into the second year they'd know what a species is.
You've obviously read it more recently than I, so remind me, where does it attack Jews? According to my fading memory this alleged tract of white supremacist propaganda rated them (and Asians) as the smartest.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Well, not conservative/liberal (those words only have the relevant meaning in the US, and "liberal" is still fairly right-wing by global standards) but right/left.
And you summarise their respective /aims/, yes, and all the faults that come with each.
A right wing conspiracy theory is much more likely to be on a grand scale because a philosophy which promotes the ego is likely to end up with something subjective rather than objective.
Okay.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value#Marx.27s_contribution
Summary:
"those who subscribed to one or more conspiracy theories OR who strongly supported a free market economy..."
Article:
"people who agreed with free market economic principles AND endorsed conspiracy theories"
Who the hell are they talking about?
1. People who advocate free markets AND simultaneously believe conspiracy theories.
2. The sum total of (people who advocate for free markets REGARDLESS of their other views) + (people who believe in conspiracy theories REGARDLESS of their view on free markets)
???
Those words are an insult, as they should be. They are an insult to individual freedom and to intellect.
MY OTHER COMMENTS
Be thankful it's not anywhere in his right hand, or you'd be jinking down the freeway like a Sarejevo shopper.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Note that he did not expect them to take out a huge loan in order to be taught to fish.
But I guess you're just that much greater than Jesus eh?
Yeah, I noticed that as soon as I started reading this thread. I know that pointing this out is probably useless, but from the moderation section of the Slashdot FAQ:
Flamebait: Comments whose sole purpose is to insult and enrage.
Troll: A Troll is similar to Flamebait, but slightly more refined. This is a prank comment intended to provoke indignant (or just confused) responses.
In other words, for a comment to be Flamebait or Troll, there has to be obvious intent on the part of the writer for it to be so. "I disagree" doesn't count. "It's all lies" or "this guy is a shill" or "it's all BS" don't count. "Everyone on Slashdot thinks it's wrong" doesn't count. "Anyone who would make a comment like this probably has three-ways with Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer while torturing puppies and kittens and using pictures of Linus Torvalds as toilet paper" doesn't count. Those are all reasons to reply to the comment and point out the commenter's mental, moral, and genetic shortcomings, but they aren't reasons to lower the visibility of the comment to people reading the discussion. Whenever you mod something down merely because you disagree with it, you're announcing to everyone that you're not confident that your side of the issue can withstand open debate.
"The Greens lynched a hacker in Chicago. Last month, but I think the body's still hanging from the old Water Tower."
Because Somalia is supposed to how somehow be indicative of real capitalism somehow?
Tell you what, find Somalia for me on this globe. I'll give you a hint, it's not the large, snow-covered land mass at the bottom of this sphere.
I am John Hurt.
News at 11.
Wow, sounds like you hurt your back bending so far backwards to miss the point eh?
Note that I said 'leaned socialist', not 'was a card carrying Socialist'.
Jesus certainly DID advocate a certain social order and priorities from the individual level on up. That social order is more closely fit by some variety of socialist philosophy (not necessarily Socialist, just socialist) than by free market capitalism. That is not quite the same as advocating a political ideology, but certainly some such ideologies are better suited to the social order he advocated than others.
You can bet he would not have taken money from the people and given it to the money changers like our government did (under both Republican and Democratic leadership no less).
I mean, we just had a guy on a congressional science committee forcefully and publicly proclaim that women emit some kind of magical substance to prevent pregnancy when "legitimately" raped.
I think the guy is a buffoon, personally. But is he wrong? If you reject his claim as categorically impossible on the face of it then you are making the same mistake being discussed. What your opinion is doesn't matter. It's the facts. Just the facts, ma'am.
After that yo-yo made his pronouncement I immediately thought, jeez, what a maroon. There's another example of decide your opinion first, then make up facts to support it. But then I asked myself, what if he's right? After all, there's more to it than you might know, Horatio.
So I did some fact checking. There is some slight support that stress will interfere with fertilization. Beyond that, I couldn't find much to support his claim, that didn't appear to be politically motivated.
But what we want to be true means nothing. It is what *is* true that is important.
“What are the facts? Again and again and again – what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what “the stars foretell,” avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable “verdict of history” – what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!”
The operative word is ideology which is "the body of doctrine, myth, belief, etc., that guides an individual, social movement, etc." Once you subscribe to an ideology, you tend to be close minded to alternatives. Contrast that against the scientific process that uses hypothesis, evidence, and theory to drive belief and action. A true scientist would constantly test existing theories against new evidence and reformulate new hypotheses and theories to support the new evidence.
The free market is one of those funny ideas. Free markets are good at reconciling supply and demand. Unfortunately, free markets can form into oligopolies and cartels which are sub optimal at resolving supply and demand. There is a difference between supporting free markets and having a free market ideology. I support a free market and expect government regulations to keep the market free. I also expect the government to solve social issues that the free market is unable or unwilling to solve.
It's kind of like Darwinism. Scientific evidence supports the theory of natural selection and evolution. I can go in my back yard watch animals behaving in a Darwinian manner. I subscribe to Darwinian theory, but I am not a Darwinian ideologist. I don't believe people have to behave that way. I believe as a society we can do better than that.
Not that scientists don't fall into ideologies around a particular sciences. It sometimes takes a crafty politician (and scientist) to convince a scientific body accept a new theory.
Debate skills are almost orthogonal to logic/reasoning skills.
The purpose of science and peer review is to convince people doing science that propositions match the real world - that they are reproducible by knowledgeable practitioners.
The purpose of rhetoric, sophistry, and debate skills is to convince the majority of voters/jurors that propositions are right. No connection to the real world is needed.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
trying to apply the true Scotsman defense will work on slashdot?
"I can't think" you should have stopped right there. The rest was just drivel.
I think he had a social bent and that some political ideologies support it and others do not. Surely a follower of Christ should choose a political philosophy that meshes with his social philosophy.
Meanwhile, the Republican party is far more in to Mammon than Christ, only they worship a bronze statue of a bull and a bear rather than a golden calf.
That's not to say he would necessarily support any particular party today (I imagine he would likely be an independent), but I think it is generally safe to say that implementing a social safety net comes closer to following his teachings than throwing the poor to the wolves does.
As for abortion, it's hard to say, he never actually spoke on the topic of when a soul enters the fetus and makes it precious to God. Of course, he tended to advocate non-coercive solutions, so I would guess if he didn't like abortions, he would make sure the mother had medical care, support, and forgiveness so that abortions wouldn't be so tempting.
Sadly, Akin was informed by a doctor who actually believes that idiocy. Of course, that doctor should lose his medical license for gross lack of knowledge of basic human anatomy. (Side note: If women could prevent pregnancy by expelling unwanted sperm, birth control companies would immediately go out of business.)
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
We've descended to the point of addressing political dissent or disagreements over science as some sort of psychological issue.
Have gnu, will travel.
So you filter the science you accept based purely on your ideology. How does that make you one bit different than a Creationist?
Or to put it another way, if puking millions of years of sequestered CO2 into the atmosphere in the space of three centuries is leading to serious, even severe consequences, how exactly does your political ideology matter in the least?
It strikes me that the story of King Canute demonstrating to his subordinates that his status and power could not stop the tide is on you should ponder. The universe doesn't give a flying fuck about your political leanings, or mine or anyone else's. It will crush a libertarian, a communist or a conservative equally.
All you are telling me is that libertarians and other absolutist free market types have formulated an economic system profoundly unsuited to deal with substantial changes in our environment. Instead of saying "the free market can solve the problem of AGW", what you are really saying is "it cannot, so science must be ignored in the pursuit of short term goals."
Did I mention the universe doesn't care about dollar bills either?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Oh, oh. You've just touched the third rail of faith and religion as an acceptable subject for psychological study.
Its one thing of my dog talks to me and tells me to do something. If my god does so, its protected speech.
Have gnu, will travel.
I didn't follow this from the summary: who doesn't think that HIV causes AIDS? And why would they think that? Do they not think that the Flu virus causes the Flu, or is it only HIV that they're singling out?
Note that I said 'leaned socialist', not 'was a card carrying Socialist'.
You keep using the word "socialist." I do not think it means what you think it means. "Socialism," like I stated earlier, is an economic regime under which the means of production are owned by the government. It exists independently of the political system in place in a given country. You can have socialist countries in which there is great personal freedom (i.e., most countries in Europe), or you can have socialist countries in which there is little personal freedom (the old USSR, China, Cuba, North Korea, etc.)
Jesus certainly DID advocate a certain social order and priorities from the individual level on up. That social order is more closely fit by some variety of socialist philosophy (not necessarily Socialist, just socialist) than by free market capitalism.
But again, Jesus never advocated that the means of production be owned by the government. Ergo, he could not have been a socialist. On the other hand, Jesus did teach that one should have a certain degree of economic independence. His teachings in The Parable of the Talents and the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard illustrate this.
You can bet he would not have taken money from the people and given it to the money changers like our government did (under both Republican and Democratic leadership no less).
You're missing the point of Jesus beating up the money changers and expelling them from the Temple. He did this because He felt that a house of worship was no place to conduct business.
In case of fire, do not use elevator. Use water!
You're saying stuff like "some people have darker skin than others" or "some guys with slitty eyes have the slits a little different to some other guys so I can probably say vaguely which part of that area over there they come from". And then you're guessing that you can tell whether someone "has Asian ancestors" which as-is is bullshit - I can tell you that /everyone/ has African ancestors, for example, so I guess we're all black as black can be.
So, are you saying that "racial characteristics" form "a list of ways that people can look the same"? Where are you going with that? Do you want to see if there are correlations between whiteness of skin / slittiness of eyes and *something*? Are you aiming to find some sort of causation? What kind of objective tests do you propose? (hint: "lots of Olympic runners are kinda brown" and "all the guys who were excellent at math in my school had narrower eyelids than me" aren't the results of fair tests.) The last 150 years have been full of stuff like this, so come up with something good :-).
The solution I favor, and that I believe will be the successful one, is the natural move to alternative forms of energy. I think that advances in alternative energy (both lowering cost and increasing efficiency) will lead to clean electricity generation, and that electric vehicles (and/or hybrids) will be the norm in the next 20-30 years. I think all of this can happen without the burden of a carbon market.
Why would that happen, so long as we have coal/oil/gas to burn? It's still cheaper, so logic would dictate that free market would exploit it so long as it's there, and so long as they don't have to pay for externalities like AGW (which they don't in the present arrangement).
Well, it looks like we have a nice chance to verify the results of the study here. We already know about your position on AGW and AIDS. Can you please post a reply to the following additional questions in the interest of science:
Does smoking tobacco significantly increase the chance of lung cancer?
Who was behind 9/11?
What is your opinion on the validity of president Obama's US citizenship, especially as associated with the circumstances of his birth?
What do you know about the existence of secret FEMA detainment camps and the REX-84 program?
Is there a secret long-term plan for UN-led occupation of the USA?
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/give-a-man-a-fish.html
Your accusation about libertarians is a strawman.
Corporations are creatures of government. Government has granted then special legal privileges, most importantly certain legal immunities. Even the most ardent libertarians agree that a tort system is necessary for a society. The officers and owners of a corporation are not legally responsible for their decisions, it's small wonder that abuses occur.
Why do you think we need government to provide infrastructure? Aren't roads just subsidies to automakers and the petroleum industry? Would CO2 emissions, pollution, urban sprawl and other environmental problems be so serious if government had not FORCED us to divert resources into roads? What about the number of deaths and injuries in traffic accidents?
Re Somalia, you can't expect a nation that endured decades of rule by a military dictatorship (government) to blossom into paradise after the violent overthrow of the regime. Especially when the US government launches an immediate invasion under the auspices of a humanitarian mission and has continually intervened in the country ever since. Somalia might be populated by warring clans, but how many foreign countries have they invaded and how many foreign civilians have they murdered in the last decade?
What happened to those Wall St. speculators when their bad decisions were about to destroy their companies? Along comes GOVERNMENT to bail them out and force everyone else to take responsibility for those decisions. In a libertarian world, you take responsibility for your own actions. Half the problems with the U.S. economy are a direct result of propping up a failed financial system.
I don't reject science. I reject the idea of giving government any additional power. They've done enough damage.
You're right, telling people to go into massive debt to learn to fish is apparently the government's job...
The climate-science deniers are just the tip of the iceberg. There are numerous other crackpots that will twist anything and everything just to keep their messed-up view of the world intact. These people are beyond any capability for actual understanding and are on the very extreme left in the classical Dunning-Kruger graph. The only thing that can be done, is to make sure they never get any kind of power or remove them from power immediately. Unfortunately, there are a lot of followers that are not really any less mentally incapable and hence democracy can lift the most astounding idiots into power.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
As to the global warming, etc., AFAIC this stuff being pushed by various politicians is another way to steal individual freedoms. It's all about taxes, it's all about caps on production, it's all about diminishing personal liberties.
You're putting the cart before the horse. What do proposed solutions have to do with the science behind global warming? If you don't like the proposed solutions then come up with your own but don't deny the science.
The OP is NOT a troll. There ARE actual problems with AGW as a theory or at least to the extent it has an effect. True scientists not only WELCOME debate but they ENCOURAGE it. Science is not about being right or wrong. Science is about discovery and understanding the world. Most often theories need to be expounded upon and details need more exploring to fully understand something as complex as the weather systems of the entire Earth. Furthermore many people actully fully grasp that climate change is happening and that over the average it is tending towards warming. The disagreement is on how much people affect that AND on what does that mean next. It is when policy is rammed through under the guize of BIG GOVERNMENT that people take a step back and first ask science if it has actually proven that the policy is needed. Many many models of climate change have been absurdely wrong but we don't talk about those? Why? Because they make people look silly? That's a little childish in itself. We should look at the failed climate models and see WHY they were wrong. THIS should be what is in the public eye.
Your idea of a politician does not reflect reality. Its nice in theory though... kinda of like something else I know.
> You keep using the word "socialist." I do not think it means what you think it means. "Socialism," like I stated earlier, > is an economic regime under which the means of production are owned by the government. This totally retard and limited definition of the term socialism coudl onyl come from an American. Please tell me Im wrong as I like Americans.
being intelligent, moral, rational. It doesn't really matter, since the opinions of people like you are not relevant to any adults.
However, many of the solutions posited are ECONOMIC solutions designed to reduce the amount of CO2 output.
The scientists basic solution is simple. "Stop increasing CO2 in the atmosphere," It's when you try to come up with ways to achieve that goal that you delve into the economic sphere.
The internet has done one thing very very well, propagate stupidity faster that passes off as science or news.
There is a local radio station that has a PSA about how to be "greener", and the majority of the suggestions and "facts" claimed in the PSA are just plain wrong.
For instance they claim that driving 120 km/h in a 100 km/h zone uses 20% more gas. This is fundamentally stupid because there is no correlation to an increase in speed by X% matches the increased rate of fuel consumption.
Another gem, apparently Canadians throwing out plastic garbage bags results in millions (plural) of tonnes of landfill waste a year. The average plastic grocery bag weighs 6 grams. There is therefore 166666666667 bags in 1 million metric tonnes (169341166667 in a long tonne). THis breaks down to each Canadian throwing out over 4500 bags a year. I personally do not do that much shopping.
Also I can't stand the idea of "mythmatics", the idea that large numbers are scary so we should reduce those numbers to be green. Yes 1 million tonnes is a big scary number, however consider how much of ALL garbage is thrown out. Statistics Canada suggests the average Canadian throws out 1 tonne of garbage a year, which means the total impact of even throwing out 4500 plastic grocery bags is only 2.7%. However I doubt the average Canadian even throws out 1/10 of that many bags a year, meaning that really less then 0.3% of total landfill waste is from plastic bags.
Throwing out plastic bags is the biggest non-issue compared to the rest of the weight of garbage that is thrown out.
Most of this is regurgitated stupidity from the internet based in little fact and a lot of hyperbole. People read about it online and then re-broadcast it without investing any amount of time verifying it.
The problem is that the internet has become very good at showing content that looks factual, even makes sense if you think about it, but is based on no facts, no science, and is ultimately wrong, but then gets propagated over and over again until it basically becomes urban myth.
A lot of "Green" science is mired in this kind of social disinformation.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
"An uneducated person is one easily controlled!"
And a person that endures 12 years of government mandated obedience conditioning is difficult to control?
However it seems many people want to lump it all together. A situation of "You have to accept that the Earth is getting warmer, the evidence is extremely solid. Once you accept that, everything else follows logically, you can't question the proposed solutions, they are science!" As such if someone rejects any part, they accuse them of being anti-science and blind to the observations.
There ^^ is where it starts. You've got politically motivated people, who don't realize they are politically motivated. They believe they are acting in the defense of science by insisting that anyone who disagrees with them on any one of those 4 postulates is some kind of anti-science moron. So they label, they berate, they attack anyone who does not think as they do because "Science" (however they personally define that) is on their side and "Science" cannot be wrong. Take notice, everyone, this is how religions start.
I swear they give me mod points to shut me up.
At this point the debate about solutions to global warming should look to Economists for evaluation of those proposed solutions, Climatologists are now not the experts who are needed to evaluate the proposed solutions.
But to take it in a different direction. If the solution proposed is Terraforming to deal with the impacts of global warming, much like solution the, um Economists from Freakanomics, came up with, then the experts needed would be Engineers in collaboration with Climate Scientists.
Sensibility of course comes down in favor of the engineering solution, but between the banksters and their economists on one side, and scientists and engineers on the other, guess who will win the political battle?
Take for example all the pie-in-the-sky methods proposed for sequestering carbon, as seen in Popular Science. All of them cost enormous amounts of (you guessed it, TAX) money. Lots of profit! The 1%-ers must profit profit profit from cleaning up the environment, after profiting from dirtying it!
Much simpler, cheaper, and more effective would be the change of some farming methods to increase organic topsoil. We know how the natural carbon cycle works, and we don't need expensive pumping stations and rare earth magnets and gobs of electricity to exploit it. Plant cover crops and trees? Re-green the deserts? But Wall Street can't get their fingers in that pie!
The solutions are simple, cheap, and effective. But not so long as politicians and economists and bankers continue to exploit science to their financial ends.
That I'm right, and you don't like it, doesn't mean I'm a troll.
Socialism is government enforced charity and wealth redistribution. One might argue that charity at the end of a gun or a mob is not charity at all, but either way, socialism is not a synonym for altruism or charity.
Jesus was in favor of charity, but so far as I can tell, voting to have someone else's taxes pay for charity that should come from you is not what he was looking for. What is missing is where you, yourself, take action and give of yourself to provide that aid. It is not enough to pull a lever and expect someone else to take care of it. You don't get credit for making it someone else's problem.
As far as wealth redistribution, my reading of Jesus' opinion of wealth is that it is just a distraction. Rich people are making their own existence in this life and the afterlife harder by wasting their time on amassing material wealth like a points on a scoreboard. They stain their soul by lying and cheating and stealing money from those who need it. Money is useful as a medium of exchange, but amassing more than what you need is corrosive.
So, staring at the wealth of the rich and being angry that they have it is essentially like seeing someone covered in feces and being mad they have more than you do. You gain nothing by exerting anger or pain to extract that wealth except through persuasion, and you are constantly risking the sin of jealousy when you are fixated on their scoreboard as much, if not more, than they are. You gain nothing by redistributing wealth in the eyes of Jesus. If your spirit is good, you have all the wealth you need, and if you are poor in spirit, no manner of money can change that.
Of course, the confusion is understandable. A real Christian community would look something like what you might think the best sort of socialist community would look like. It might even look sort of communist, in the loose sense. The major difference is the driving source of the fair distribution of resources. The Christian community distributes resources based on an internal desire to give to others and the understanding that they are enriched by giving. No compulsion is needed, and indeed, a citizen of such would be aghast if they even accidentally failed to help their neighbor. In socialism, it is forced on you by law. You can still live as a Christian in a socialist state, and many have, but just like wealth, socialism can create the comforting illusion of helping your neighbor when, in reality, you have not lifted a finger.
In a Christian state, you are not compelled to do anything, and no one would have a right to compel you, but it is your loss. In a sense, both socialism and capitalism are at a 90 degree angle from what Jesus was talking about. The more conservative or capitalist sense of personal responsibility is it's advantage over socialism. Socialism's desire to see to the needs of others is it's advantage over capitalism. As far as negatives, capitalism exults personal rights over those of the community, whereas socialism forces the community on you. You should always have the right to choose right or wrong, but the ability for you to choose is only worthwhile if you choose to help others.
Obviously, this would be Christian doctrine, you won't find it convincing unless you believe in something like the Christian God or an afterlife, so disputing some of these points is a waste of time if you are not in the same understanding. That said, I don't think it is right to impute to him sympathies that I don't think he would have. Jesus would have the caring sense of the best sort of socialist, but also the strong assertion of the need for free will and personal responsibility that the best kind of classical liberal/libertarian might have.
Or in other words, disinterested scientists should not advise us on the impact of global warming and how to ameliorate it--they should leave this job up to the fossil fuel industry and the public relation agencies and politicians who depend upon that industry for financial support.
Somalia was ruled by a military dictatorship (government) for decades. The government was overthrown by violence. Then, the government of the U.S. conducts a military invasion to make it safe for corporate exploitation and has been continuously interfering in Somalia ever since. Including a U.S.-backed invasion by Ethiopian forces, and a series of drone and missile strikes. Gee, I wonder why the country hasn't flourished?
Actually, the thimerosal theory of autism was not very plausible even at the outset, because a) the amount of mercury was very small, and b) there have been enough instances of environmental mercury poisoning that the symptoms are well known, and they do not include autism. It was never a serious scientific theory. Thimerosal was removed from most vaccinations simply on the general concern that even though there was no actual evidence of harm, the possibility could not be entirely excluded that it might produce some subtle adverse effect (like the slight reduction in IQ that has been reported even with low doses of lead).
Jesus advocated for equality, including gender equality. He was also against the hierarchies of the status quo. There is a social order in there, and it ain't what conservatives are pushing.
If you want to know our best understanding of what he taught, and how it sometimes differs from modern bibles and why, then I recommend Misquoting Jesus.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Sometimes the best way to "love your neighbor" is not to hand them a check every month
This is true. And most liberals are against this type of cruel "kindness".
But the political discussion on entitlement programs cannot suffer such subtleties.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
I'd like to see a study to test the hypothesis that anybody who puts more than 3 non-acronym words in one paragraph in ALL CAPITALS is likely to believe in one or more conspiracy theories.
In a Christian state, you are not compelled to do anything, and no one would have a right to compel you, but it is your loss.
I should have said, no one would have the right to compel charity. I don't mean to state that I think that Jesus said there should be no laws at all.
When I read that, I suddenly had the image of people thinking I was saying Jesus was an anarchist. You could be compelled to not do violence to your neighbor, of course. You just would not be compelled to do "good".
While I do see how this is an attractive conspiracy, I would think that people would be more likely to think that the companies are conspiring against science to further their economic goals.
It all depends on where you see the social threat coming from. Some people are terrified of the power of government. Mix in a proclivity for paranoia, and the mind generates the story-line. And it is *believed*.
Incidentally, Friedrich Hayek, in many ways the original market fundamentalists, believed that government should exercise its power to break up powerful corporate institutions so that they do not rig the system for themselves. Hayek saw this as the only primary role of the government in the economy, in stark contrast to Keynes.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
(same guy here, second account, maxed out the number of comments per day on the first one).
Where did I say anything about denying any science? As I said: I deny the gov't any authority to dictate to individuals how to live, climate change or not. Should I state it in some other language for you to understand better? Because I can if you want to, 5 more languages I can do it in.
MY OTHER COMMENTS
Not Jesus, it's his disciples after his ascension into heaven, but here's your citation from the Bible:
Acts 4:32-35
32 All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. 33 With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all 34 that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales 35 and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.
If anything, the early church was a commune.
very strongly indicate that this paper is anything but unbiased
It is natural for scientists to take climate science as a given truth, since it is science, and the consensus is accepted as scientific by every major scientific organisation in the world.
You see, the truth is not in between scientists and "skeptics", which is why scientists talk about *denial*, because that is was it is -- scientifically speaking.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Did I mention the universe doesn't care about dollar bills either?
- dollars, gold, whatever, it's expression of our effort, our human time on this rock. It's our lives and no collective can force an individual to spend his time on doing things the way the collective wants. The outcome will always be the opposite of what the supposed solution is going to take care of.
Individuals route around the damage caused by the collective in their lives, they look out for themselves, as they should.
Dollar bills? It's life years.
MY OTHER COMMENTS
Unless you advocate anarchy, we already take wealth from people at gunpoint. It's more a question of will we then use it to help the [poor or wil we blow up brown people with it.
NO, you defined Communism, not socialism. Think more in terms of socialized medicine and FDR.
Yet another warmist attempt to educate the masses, regardless of the data.
The paper is based on an amalgamation of several different surveys, that weren't sent to the people he claimed they were sent to - http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/07/lewandowsky-thinks-failure-to-get-or-find-email-is-conspiracy-theory/
The fact of the matter is that the paper did *not* observe what it claims to observe, and was so shoddy and filled with methodological errors, it shouldn't have gotten past the first glance of peer review.
A black stain, once again, on the soul of warmists.
Capitalism?
Here are some examples.
We must choose between the earth and the free market.
Capitalism = the free market
Capitalism is the best system ever made.
Capitalism not the earth is the source of our good fortunes.
We don't want to destory our good fortunes.
We don't want to destroy capitalism.
We must destroy the earth.
Wait! We all come from the earth.
We are all screwed so forget about it.
Vote Romney.
Romney = capatalism
Obama = socialism
Socialism is the opposite of capitalism
Don't vote Obama
Vote Romney
Ok maybe we should recognize the earth.
The earth is the most successful planet that we know.
Evolution is the process that made it successful.
Darwinian evolution = natural selection = evolution.
Darwinian evolution picks winners over losers.
We must pick winners over losers in order to be successful.
The Republicans and Romney are best at succeeding and are all winners.
Humans should follow the Darwinian model.
We must pick the winners too.
We all agree with the Republicans.
We must pick the Republicans.
No one but the Republicans should be allowed to exist.
We all agree with ourselves.
Society use your Sciences
That real Christian community you describe might realize that the process of getting what's needed to those who need it might take some considerable organization. They might get together and discuss what a person's obligation to charity might be and how it should be distributed to those in need. They would probably all vote on it. Some might observe that such a process is often known as 'government' and also as a 'democracy'.
They probably wouldn't provide any support to anyone who suggested that the entire population's contributions should be given to the richest men in town so they could remain rich after making a series of foolish but short term profitable wagers at the expense of everyone else.
I wouldn't be surprised if such a community excommunicated those who paid only lip service while worshiping mammon (after a concerted effort to reach them and teach them the error of their ways, of course).
However, if your position is that Jesus would abhor any sort of coercion, it seems odd to throw in with a party that is all about coercion in matters other than social programs.
This study is making the leap that rejection of the popular scientific consensus (i.e. climate change) is rejection of the scientific method. By the same token Galileo also suffered from a "motivated rejection of science" for not believing in a geocentric universe which all the top minds at the time agreed was just common sense.
:D
I'm not siding against climate change, but I think the peer review process and having independent researchers challenge ideas is an extremely important part of advancing our knowledge. I'm not sure why this study seems to believe "science" is the process of a committee making judgments and everyone following them.
Perhaps if you get a degree in psychology then you think of "science" as a form of "understood magic" and that "wizards" (scientists) should not be meddled with
Oh man - Exhibit A here. The aptly self-identified (by not logging in) Coward treats science as simply a process of advocacy for political (or other ideological ) positions. All money being spent on climate research is "pro-warmist" (since that is what actual science shows). That is so-o-o-o unfair to people who want to believe things contrary to the evidence.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
Well, based on your other posts, this one is not a joke.
So we have geek, a self-confessed free-marketeer.
Sees a random conspiracy (the "shrinks" must be socialists) with no evidence.
Uses this to dismiss the science.
Ta-daa!
SJW n. One who posts facts.
"you've successfully killed the Enlightenment and any principle of self-government through reason and debate."
Science killed the enlightenment.
http://bit.ly/dYaWUc
So you are saying that in Europe the means of production are owned by the government? That must be a different Europe than the one I'm living in ...
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
I think you're referring to the "feeding the multitude" miracle, in which Jesus turns veral loaves of bread into enough fish for thousands. This example is exactly the opposite of the point you were trying to make. As to the textbook definition of socialism, when you can miraculously make fish, talk about controlling the means of production! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feeding_the_multitude
let's have a conversation! let me know what you think.
Most free market people are against the idea of anyone controlling what effect them. It doesn't matter if it is the government through regulation that aren't needed which picks winners and losers or if it is some company that has become the defacto dictator due to its size and power protect their own interests.
The socialism boogeyman has the same root cause, entities other then yourself in charge of what directly effects you.
The mainstream political chat-o-sphere these days is mostly divided between "I want to do that myself and you should too" and the "I want government to do it for me, give them all the power to do it for you too".
That's of course overly simplified, but no more then your observations.
5 more languages I can do it in.
Proceed.
Reality dictates how you live. You can live your libertarian fantasy all you like, but at the end of the day some problems require a society's effort. More importantly, some problems don't require your opinion. If AGW Isis happening (and the overwhelming majority of scientists in related fields say it is) then we can either sit around on our asses, watch it all happen and receive solace from our ideologies, or we can admit that there is such a thing as society, indeed civilization, and find a way to prevent the worst.
Even democracies have had conscription. And this problem does not require anywhere near that kind of direct state intervention.
I'd like my grandchildren to have a reasonably decent planet I live on. If that means higher taxes and moving to alternatives, then so be it. Christ, the West beat the Germans and the Soviets, and spent a helluva lot of money to do it. What's you're problem now?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
rejecting the political solution does not automagically mean rejecting the science. Or are you suggesting there is only one way to fix it and it has to be only the ways that have been purposed but failed so far to date?
Wow, I never realized that /. limited the number of comments you could make in a day. That's never happened to me but I don't suppose I've ever tried to post more than 20 or 30 comments in a day.
To answer your reply, I realize you are an extreme individualist but as someone once said "Your freedom to swing your fist around ends at my nose." I'm all for individual rights but I also recognize that none of us lives free of the necessity for other people to support our lives, to provide the goods and services that we are unable to provide on our own. There has to be a balance between the needs of the individual and the necessity of having a functioning society to support our needs. If something threatens the functioning of society to the point where it could significantly reduce the quality of life for the individuals in that society then I feel it's reasonable for society to take steps to address that threat even though it may reduce some individuals freedom. Like it or not we're all here together and we have to live with that.
While I'm pretty much with you and the war's on poverty (not a complete failure), drugs, terror and the PATRIOT Act I find nothing abstract with the threat of global warming. So like I said, as an individualist what's your solution if doing nothing is a recipe for disaster?
It is sad to see someone who views his fellow men in terms of interference.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
A contentious comment which lacks rational thought has no purpose but to insult.
It insults the reader; it insults logic; it insults intelligence; it insults humanity.
It is possible to find a subtle but remarkable fault in established reasoning, but you had better be damn good at showing it. It is possible write something logical which is based on uncommon premises, but those premises must be made clear.
For example, to dismiss global warming is anti-science in the sense that the scientific consensus disagrees with you - so you have to either (i) carefully provide an original explanation for results or (ii) explain why we shouldn't care that global warming is happening. If you're doing (ii), you better have some mighty interesting premises - anything which comes down to "cuz I will be dead by then" or "cuz the free market solves all 4 every1" IS so childish as to come under the "flamebait" category.
Other examples of flamebait:
- Communism works;
- Capitalism works;
- Israel has a right to exist;
- Palestine has a right to exist;
- Just war is good;
- All wars are wrong;
- There is a heaven;
- There is no heaven;
- I deserve what I have;
- You don't deserve what you have;
etc.
All these statements are flamebait. Even if they had some element of correctness in them, they are so boring that they insult the reader. Be nuanced. Be sophisticated. Be insightful. Tackle an argument from all sides. Hell, on a good day, be original.
The fact that a pregnant woman needs forgiveness is about the most fucked up part of modern society. How truly sad is it that bringing another human life into the world is an act that must be forgiven.
Of course, there's a reason. A child is an economic burden. This is not hyperbole. This is literal truth. We have successfully rigged our economic system such that propagating our own species is a burden. This situation is so wildly fucked up I don't see how it can possibly be stable for very long. This grand cut-throat capitalism we have erected, where it's every man (and woman (and child)) for himself and "I'ma get mine and make sure you get none", is so absurdly dysfunctional that I firmly believe it would result in the extinction of our species if it were successfully kept in place long enough.
Fortunately that vision of capitalism is purely as fictional as the vision of communism was in Soviet Russia. It does not exist. It will never exist. It can not exist. The Republican party in the US preaches it to selfish morons in an effort to garner votes. They won't ever cause it to exist as preached. They know damn well what a hell of scorched earth it would leave behind if they did. That said, the pieces of that vision which actually are in place do indeed create a burden.
Even more fortunately, the women of the species are as pragmatic as ever. Having children out of wedlock successfully shortcircuits the economic burden. Is it any wonder there's been an enormous rise in single-parent families? As long as some semblance of society exists, children will be cared for, somehow or other. Our women know it, and keep having children anyway, regardless of the madness gripping the species.
The more philosophical among them have been overheard to say, "This too shall pass."
You forgot lolology.
You get an ology, you're a scientist!
The reason "free-market" types totally lose it when discussing solutions to climate change is that the main solution proposed is a blasphemously fake free-market in CO2. Carbon markets are anethema to those who believe in free markets, they're more or less a free anti-market that governs the non-production of something instead of the production of it.
Actually the main solution proposed was simply taxing CO2 pollution. The idiotic CO2 market was an attempt to get USA to agree to the Kyoto accord. Since that failed anyway, the sensible thing to do would be to say "stuff it" and go back to taxing CO2. Alas, once enough effort has been put into inventing something bad, it is very difficult for humanity to just go back and say oops, that was stupid, let us forget that idea.
The solution I favor, and that I believe will be the successful one, is the natural move to alternative forms of energy. I think that advances in alternative energy (both lowering cost and increasing efficiency) will lead to clean electricity generation, and that electric vehicles (and/or hybrids) will be the norm in the next 20-30 years. I think all of this can happen without the burden of a carbon market.
A lot of the fossil fuels available can be dug out of the ground for the equivalent of USD 50 per barrel of oil or less. We can hope that clean energy sources manage to get cheaper than that in 20 years, but it seems like quite a large gamble. Even at energy prices equivalent to USD 25 per barrel of oil, quite a lot of fossil fuels are worth digging up, and that seems like an impossible 20-year target right now. Also, that price would make consumption skyrocket, so it is likely that manufacture of solar panels and so on would not be able to keep up with demand, even if the cost of production was low enough.
What do you propose to do if the problem does not happen to solve itself?
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
but it is not the only way in which that can happen
No, but enforcing our current capitalist fanaticism is pretty much ensured to make sure that it CAN'T happen.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Actually it's 2 posts per 24 hours on my account here, because of persistent negative moderation of a number of followers.
On this account I think it's about 10 or 15, I don't know.
---
The goods and services that we provide for each other must be exchanged for in the voluntary fashion in the market free from gov't intervention, and people do provide each other with outcome of their labor, that's why we do all over-production and under-consumption, because we want to trade.
Trade is about exchange products and services that we produce, not about paper, that's by the way, why gov't printing of fiat currency is just counterfeiting and an inflation tax, that's why gov'ts hate real money, it prevents this type of theft.
As to your final question, I spent 5 minutes replying to it here already, so I don't have to repeat it, here is the link.
MY OTHER COMMENTS
Fellow men do not interfere, the ones who do, I don't consider to be my fellows.
MY OTHER COMMENTS
That's strange; I thought it was Timothy Ray Brown the only man to be officially declared cured from AIDS.
Except despite the headline, what the actual article you linked correctly points out is that he's the only man officially delcared cured from HIV.
Those people who have HIV but never develop AIDS still have HIV.
Yes, it's a complex world and we must work with limited information. You seem quite smug about the banning of CFCs; do you feel the same way about the banning of DDT? This has killed an estimated 100MM people via malaria.....
I call B.S. on this. Please provide a citation for this claim. DDT was NEVER banned for malaria control in any area where malaria was a serious endemic. It is explicitly permitted today (as it always has been) for the purposes of malaria vector control in affected regions. About 4000 tonnes are produced and used annually for this purpose. The Wikipedia page is a convenient place to start informing yourself about the facts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT .
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
No, Shrek was Holyweird's idea of an ogre, not a troll. Troll was an entirely different monster, sometimes related to dragons in some obscure way. I believe ogres were closer to giants and cyclops.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
...because it seems to listen to climate scientists. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_editorial_stance#Global_warming "The Economist supports government action on global warming, declaring its view in a December editorial before the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference that the risk of catastrophic climate change and its effect on the economy outweighs the economic consequences of insuring against global warming now."
That's only true until the "advances in alternative energy (both lowering cost and increasing efficiency)" as the op stated make it less expensive and competitive.
People know that to be true but do not want to wait for the advancements so they attempt to impose artificial costs to oil and coal to make it more comparative as it is. The down side to that is the economy collapses and the poor are hit the hardest by the increased energy costs.
So I'm actually somewhat lost on your point with HIV, I think it detracts from your other valid point about politicized science, tbh.
This.
I was reading along, thinking he was making some decent, logical arguments and then..."wut? HIV? wtf?"
An o/t bridge too far, and didn't really add much to his general arguments over other possible, and more on-topic, arguments he could easily have offered instead imho.
Just sayin'...
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
There's something in the proverbial water that's effectively dumbing down huge swaths of the general populous when it comes to political worldviews overwriting reality. A few observations: What are the sources of their information? I heard from a friend of a friend that...; I heard on the radio...; I read in a magazine...; I saw in the news...; I read on the Internet...
What passes for "free press" these days - Radio, TV/Cable, online blogs, magazines, are virtually all for-profit commercial organizations heavily funded by advertisers and commercial foundations. Every person, every organization is corruptible - given the right price and/or level of coercion.
It is inevitable, in our modus operandi, that the richest most powerful commercial interests become embedded in the general population's psyche as something "good". Just watch/read some BP, Chevron, Exxon/Mobile commercials/advertisements. Its the echo chamber in action.
Hypocritical religious fantacism has wrapped itself around the GOP. These poeple don't give a damn about this world. Its all about the next world with them. That's why the U.S. cannot afford to have these crazy people in foreign affairs, with trigger-happy fingers on the big red button, nor should they ever again run agencies such as the Dept. of the Interior.
Words are funny things. One can be educated in school ("formal education"), educated by life ("practical experience"), educated by self-directed scholarship, and a half-dozen other ways. Formal Education is not the same thing as Education in "An uneducated person is one easily controlled!". Perhaps it is better to say that an *ignorant* person is one easily controlled.
Yes, you're wrong.
OF course it will take some time. So do we sit here and do nothing or direct resources at it? I guess that is a major question. Imagine if the Kyoto protocal wasn't about limiting production and shipping jobs to China and India who are not limited by it and are now the worlds largest pollution creators and instead focused on those advancements needed. Oil would still be naturally high and alternatives would be a lot cheaper by now. Probably so much cheaper that it would be the preferred long term energy source. A coalition of countries working on that goal has a severe advantage over forcing private industries looking to save a buck and remain in business by doing it themselves because the countries can share the results of others works and build from them. When things became viable (as in reliable and cost competitive), you simply regulate them into use if the market hasn't already jumped on them.
Here is the problem now. If we impose cap and trade schemes or limit production, the poor suffer because things costs more. We solve that by importing cheap items from countries that are not subject to the limits which in turn creates more poor because jobs aren't here. IF we wait, the well to do are at risk to lose some beach homes and property that are mostly at risk to wildfires and .hurricanes anyways. We might have to shift our food production a bit and of course there is the time tested way of taming nature and put our civil engineers to work fixing it when it becomes a threat.
Externalities are artificial costs imposed to acount for the effect of the use of the product. Those externalities are typically already accounted for by the decrease costs in goods and services the public receives. It is much more economical and efficient to simply deal with the consequences as they come about.
Now, during the better part of the Bush administration, we had expensive energy costs. We didn't have that during the Clinton administration and energy was cheap. Energy costs is one of the major driving forces behind the economy- moreso then tax policy. You cannot raise those costs and expect not to crash the economy. Many of the bad loans bundled into the default swaps that caused (were part of ) the last disaster were given to people who would have been able to afford them after the sub prime rates dropped had their extra income not went to increased energy costs.
Umm... no. Just plain no. Flamebait and troll are both defined by intent. They distinguish someone who wants to take part in the discussion (no matter how poorly they are articulating their position) from someone who just wants to make trouble. "Israel/Palestine has a right to exist" is neither flamebait nor troll. "Israelis/Palestinians are assholes" would be one of those. There is no "-1, Controversial and poorly argued" any more than there is a "-1, Disagree."
"The Greens lynched a hacker in Chicago. Last month, but I think the body's still hanging from the old Water Tower."
Just because a bunch of cooks deny your claims doesn't mean they are right.
Numerical models of the planet are hypotheses only, not science.
Science requires experimental verification.
Also, some of those who don't believe in a free market are also brainwashed. A free market is the morally correct thing. A wants to trade with B. Who is C to stand in the way?
Only a complete asshole would want to discredit someone who believes in a free market by trying to link him with those who don't believe that smoking causes cancer or that HIV leads to AIDS.
I claim that God exists because I've had spiritual experiences that lead me to believe so.
I've had visions, heard voices and music from nowhere, and had profound revelations, however I do not call them spiritual experiences because (a) I'm an atheist, and (b) I was on LSD at the time. I was perfectly aware of my brain chemistry, can you say the same?
That completely invalidates your "no evidence" hypothesis
No it doesn't, because you haven't shown that you've eliminated the possibility you could be mistaking self-hypnosis or even temporary psychosis for something supernatural. Prove those are impossibilities, and you're a step closer to proving your improbable hypothesis of an invisible man who watches everything everyone does; if you're not even prepared to consider those possibilities you're rejecting the scientific method in favour of your personal beliefs.
I recognize that my evidence is personal and subjective, although I would argue that to a certain degree it is repeatable (i.e, anyone can experience the same things if they're willing to put forth the effort).
I can recreate the effect of being on LSD if I put in the effort, all that proves is anyone can voluntarily alter their state of consciousness; it does not prove that it's truly something divine, that's merely your perception, and perception is about as far from tangible evidence as you can get, especially where altered consciousness is concerned.
I am merely asserting that a belief in God is perfectly rational.
A friend of mine was committed to a psychiatric hospital after the lock of hair on his forehead told him to attack the people who were reading his mind. As far as he was concerned the voice was real, and his belief in it rational to him (and millions of people have experienced something similar without any effort whatsoever, so that too can be called repeatable, or at least not unique). What makes your purely subjective "spiritual experience" better evidence of God than my friend's purely subjective "psychotic episode" evidence of a talking lock of hair? Again, it comes back to your perception; I can't perceive a difference, and I fail to see why your perception is somehow more valid than mine since you have not provided anything tangible to support it.
And it should be noted that there's photographic evidence that the lock of hair actually existed (even if it didn't talk); that makes my friend's belief slightly more credible, since God is notoriously camera-shy.
Note also that I have a strong scientific background
Your entire argument is essentially "I believe my experience was real, therefore the experience is evidence of my belief", which is merely circular logic, not actual evidence, so I can only conclude your scientific background is a degree from Monster Cable in subjectivism.
Blank until
The problem is finding who is liable. Libertarians usually say let the courts decide but going to court against a rich entity, whether person or corporation is like playing poker with a stacked deck. Whoever has the money can drag things out until the one without money folds.
They were talking about the Exxon Valdez on the radio today. Seems that after 25 years it is still in court trying to settle who is liable. The owners of the oil who hired the ship? The owner of the ship, who is a shell corporation but could just as easy be an individual patsy who owns nothing? The people who lent the ship owner the funds? And so on.
Taxpayers ended up on the hook to clean it up and without taxpayers a chunk of the coast would have been left toxic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Do you really believe that groups of people, regardless of their level of psychological commitment to any idea, are capable of convincing literally thousands of people in their own profession, aligned professions and knowledgeable bystanders to simply ignore facts and evidence, and to promulgate, knowingly, wrong information, proudly, authoritatively, and consistently without error.
No, the real question is how could you have believed otherwise? As has already been noted, religions of the world are great examples of the above in action. One just needs to learn a little history. There's a lot of such examples of human nature throughout history for people willing to pay attention.
And I thought science was to weed out "claptrap" or "psudoscience"by an honest discussion of the ideas. I suppose if the sun were not in the sky, if we did not have radioactive elements under our feet, and oxygen in our air, or carbon in our foodstuffs to process the chemical of life we would not have counterpossing ideas. But I do not get, is the constant changing of the terminology of "climate science and the airheads that propose to elimenate carbon dioxide from our planet".
1. Carbon dioxide is as good for you as some salt. And plants love it. You should too. Its also found in the atmosphere in the water vapors, could the scientists be confusing the water vapor in the air with the effects of long and short wave radiation that has been proven with water vapors, no awnser from the papers that I have read.
2. that big yellow ball in the sky, is a variable star. Guess what variable means. Not constant state. Remember, historically, there have been ice ages on earth, and ancient societies tell us of droughts, and of flames in the sky. Not sure what the flames mean, but the rest sounds like hot and cold. And some have proposed that times of magnetic reversals, mean cold oceans. But the counter is poising some fine arguements of the subject, the counter, is being vetted just more often then the other papers from the principles.
3. It has been only the "scientists" who are the principles who are being listened to from what I have seen. Others who say you are wrong on your interpetation of this data point, are listed as "crazy" dolts. You folks that are complaining of the dolts, who are educated in other fields, should stop, and at least listen to what that person has to say, don't waste a good teaching moment. You are talabaning them, you are bullying them, you are not being the teacher, but the asshat that all the students of life hated. Don't do that, it's not nice, its not civil, and honestly, if there was a way to bring the principals, who changed the datapoints to justice for their killing people thru their injustice. But that is another story
If you accept the science but reject the solutions advanced then isn't incumbent on you to come up with another solution? I'm open to anything that will work but doing nothing is not acceptable in my book.
Have you seen the study that says people who write papers like that one, and people who support them, show a tendency toward child molestation and cannibalism?
Have they stopped beating their wives yet?
All sarcasm aside... do people like this really believe that anybody with more than a few functional brain cells take this stuff seriously? After a while, papers like this end up being like political conventions: a bunch of dog-whistling to a political base without any concern for objective truth. As long as the serious scientific communities do not stand-up and ridicule this crap, they participate in the undermining of public faith in science.
Ah, I didn't realize that. While I pretty much vehemently disagree with you on most subjects I try to make most of my mods on the positive side however it is possible I've given you an Overrated a few times. I find your posts for the most part are neither Trolls nor Flamebait but /. unfortunately doesn't have a Disagree mod that wouldn't affect your karma.
I try to be a pragmatic person and I find most of your posts to be rigidly idealistic with little allowance for pragmatic considerations. I afraid (IIRC) your upbringing in a communist country has poisoned your attitude about government beyond all reason. In the ideals of the founding of the United States government is supposed to be the expression of all of its citizens. I'll admit that government is far from perfect in achieving that goal but I'm not willing to do away with it just because of some shortcomings.
Like it or not we all collectively live on this planet and we have to make accommodations for that fact. Your ideals might work to some extent if the population was significantly under 1 billion but not in the world we live in. As I said your personal freedom ends when it starts impinging on my life and if it takes collective action to prevent that then so be it.
So I guess your solution to global warming is just to live with it and try to adapt. I think that would be very costly in terms of money and lives and that impinges on my life.
Meanwhile the libertarians argue that they can somehow create an economic utopia
That's a straight out lie.
I am a 'free market' guy, I am against government on all fronts out of principle, that gov't is an inherent form of evil that must be controlled and cannot be allowed to steal individual freedoms.
And corporations are not?
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
Please provide a scientific definition of race before you process down that couse.
'Race' is 'family resemblance', the 'races' of 'man' are gigantic extended families. I guess not scientific enough though.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
There is actually no link between tobacco and lung cancer. There are no scientific studies to support this. However, what has been widely known for five decades, is the process of *mass production* of tobacco makes it cancer causing. No studies show organic tobacco to contain carcinogens.
The name of that journal jumped out at me for some reason. I had to follow up to learn why it unsettled me so.
Not having been provided a link to the journal, I sought it online. It seems that it is one of many published by the 'Association for Psychological Science'. Each of these journals has a dramatic cover depicting a side view of a male head either receding or projecting in six increments.
I was unable to find this article but pleasantly surprised that I could access some other articles in full text. The subject and content of the articles is about what one might expect- a serious statistical analysis of some perceived phenomenon followed by a conclusion.
I have my own ideas of what science should be. Someone comes up with a theory and then proceeds with all his might to try to disprove that theory. Then all his friends and enemies try to disprove the theory. If they should all fail, then there is hope that something has been learned. Many areas of 'science' seem to fail this test.
I love the concept of psychology and the occasional insights that come of the discipline. I've studied it off and on for over 50 years, through a number of fashionable deviations. I'm sure there is hope for some good result due to the millions of people who dedicate themselves to this interest.
It's just that I really struggle with the concept of science being so closely associated with the exploration of psychology. Can we really use the word science, the same word that we use for physics and chemistry, in relation to psychology?
...omphaloskepsis often...
"Climate science" brought skepticism upon itself, since so many scientists tortured existing facts and invented others to deceive others.
Not really my job to bring up a solution.
But here is an obvious strawman that illustrates how your concept is misguided. Suppose the solution was culling the human population, would an automatic rejection of that require someone to purpose something else in order for it to be valid?
So what exactly are the results of a warming planet anyways? How sure is the science behind that and what is missing from what we have already done throughout history to tame nature like build damns, pipe drinking water, build levies and so on what will not be available to us in the future when these results happen?
As for my solution, I have been screaming it for the past 15 years or so. Instead of pissing around with taxes and carbon caps that will only retard industry in a few countries while not only allowing growth and in some cases encouraging others (China and India) to pollute more then any savings from the arrested source could realistically provide, we should create teams of scientists sharing data either sponsored directly from or working within the countries that signed onto the Kyoto protocols who's sole purpose is to create more efficient energy and alternative sources that are not only reliable and cost competitive but viable in our existing infrastructure while paving a way to a new replacement as the tech comes on line. (I know run on sentence from hell) In the past 15 or so years, they have worked at stopping certain countries from producing while other catch up. That kind of approach does nothing to fix the problems and is at best, a solution that just shows something being done without regard to it's effectiveness.
The entire process was politically hijacked in the early to mid 1990's by groups wanting the IMF countries to forgive the third world debt and the entire idea behind certain countries limiting their carbon emissions while others to play catchup was their solution because it allowed investment in these third world countries and gave them a revenue source to repay their loans. This entire program is completely outside fixing anything to do with global warming. If we are serious about the issue, if we are serious about fixing it, we would stop with the political control shenanigans and just get research departments working on the problem with the caveat that all participating countries can share in the tech unrestricted and non-participating countries could buy into the products at low royalties.
No, Shrek was Holyweird's idea of an ogre, not a troll. Troll was an entirely different monster, sometimes related to dragons in some obscure way. I believe ogres were closer to giants and cyclops.
Neanderthals.
You did NOT want an angry Neanderthal hitting you on the head. It would have hurt. A LOT.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
That's like saying a butcher is best positioned to evaluate how much meat someone needs to throw a successful barbeque.
Which they are.
I'm sure what you're saying is, "But uh there's a butcher conspiracy and they'll all say AS MUCH MEAT AS POSSIBLE because that'll make them rich!"
Except that - and I thought this is what you free markedroids always argue when you say that All Regulation Is Evil - it's in no butcher's interest to lie about how much meat someone needs, as then they'll stop being trusted and no-one will listen to them any more.
That's why a smart butcher would only suggest 20% more meat than he thinks that you actually need. You know, just so you don't run out. And he'd try to upsell you on the "quality" meat so that you could impress your friends.
If you blindly trust someone who is making a profit off you, you are a moron, regardless of the specifics. And yes, professional politicians are making a profit off of your tax dollars and votes.
Tell that to Keith Richards. That man should be dead already.
Naked bullshit like this is why no-one takes people like you seriously.
You're right that intent may be considered, but re taking part vs just wanting to make trouble, you're standing in the minority in your interpretation of the moderation options. This is quite clear from the last ~15 years of Slashdot.
It is not sufficient to want to take part in the discussion. You have to want to play a reasonable and rational part in the discussion.
There may be a small minority of posters so dull that they intend to play a reasonable and rational part but display behaviour as if they intend only to play the fool. But, in the majority of cases, posts like the OP's show an intentional lack of willingness to make a sound contribution. They are flamebait at best.
"Israel/Palestine has a right to exist" is absolutely flamebait. It's not useful at all, but is guaranteed to produce a lot of silly fighting. It's just repeating something which has been said ten thousand times. You can discuss the history of Israel or Palestine, or explain the positions of each side, or explain what will come of maintaining Israel's sovereignty or giving Palestine sovereignty - this might be interesting, or even insightful if you're trying really hard. But trite, unsound conclusions like "right to exist" have no merit.
Congratulations. You now have a study that has successfully concluded that half the country, (the republican half) tend to be skeptical of climate science, and tend to prefer free markets. I'm sure the data could just as easily suggest that those who believe in gun ownership also oppose abortion. This is hardly a breakthrough and should not be considered legitimate data for any purposes other than political ammunition, I suspect it's original intent. To take this and conclude that people who believe in free markets, reject science, reject empirical evidence, and reject reason is utter nonsense. If you want an academic, intellectual, and scholarly tome on free markets, pick up any of Thomas Sowell's many books. There is volumes of historical and factual evidence to suggest that free markets are very functional, indeed still far superior to the layers and layers of government bureaucracy we have today whose negative consequences we so quickly ascribe to, laissez faire capitalism. You can't have one system that constantly squelches competition, protects and bails out massive mismanaged corporations, and then blame capitalism.
calling a fact 'bullshit' doesn't change the fact.
MY OTHER COMMENTS
So, I was *TOLD* by J. Random Somebody on the internet what to think and I DARED to think something else? OH THE HUMANITY!!!
Meanwhile, the U.S. government is not Caesar, it is US.
A theory is something that makes testable claims, testable predictions. Those claims don't necessarily have to be tested, just testable. Hence why there can be theories of differing levels of support. Sometimes a theory will make testable claims (like general relativity) that cannot be tested at the time the theory is made.
A hypothesis is a logically consistent explanation for something, but one that doesn't make any testable claims. String "theory" would be an example of this. It isn't a theory. It is a nice bunch of math, internally consistent, and may well be right. However it isn't a theory because it doesn't make any testable claims, it cannot make any predictions. At such time it'll become a theory.
The core of theories (meaning scientific theories in this case) is their testability.
Someone clearly hasn't had to deal with door-to-door salespeople and other forms of unscrupulous marketing
It's as easy to make fun of a bunch of anarchists that can't agree on what they stand for as it is for you to pull out the "no true scotsman" and pretend that there are no libetarians that match the bunch that are being made fun of. IMHO they are a collection of people with widely divergent views all clustered under a flag that says "I've got my stuff - go find your own" cleverly hidden by the stars and stripes.
In what way is it anywhere near being factual?
What people reject isn't "climate science", what they reject is the imposition of draconian economic measures based on scientific results combined with a particular value system.
I don't give a sh*t whether the oceans rise by a few feet or whether polar ice caps melt. They have done so in the past, and they will do so again in the future, it's not going to affect me, and humanity is going to be able to cope. The IPCC report (i.e., the consensus of hundreds of experts) itself says that we can deal with such changes without big problems. Furthermore, I think the free market is far more effective in reducing carbon emissions than any kind of government intervention; the government programs on climate change won't even achieve what their intended goals are.
Yes, free market "ideology" correlates strongly with the rejection of draconian measures on climate change, but that does not amount to a rejection of science, it amounts to a rejection of centralized economic decision making. No apologies about that.
Evidence of what? I've read the IPCC report, the consensus of hundreds of scientific experts, and I don't care about the consequences it lists. I don't want my government to impose additional taxes or tinker with markets in an attempt to prevent those outcomes. The difference isn't one of science, it is one of values, economics, and politics.
Well, I checked skeptical science, and their "basic" version is: "97% of climate experts agree humans are causing global warming.". Gee, are you going to argue that 98% is nearly all, and 97% isn't.
Oh wait, there is an intermediate tab!!! Let's see what it says. There's *another* study, (Doran 2009) that says *greater* than 95%. Well, if 98% is "nearly all", then >95% is clearly *not* "nearly all"
And if you go to wikepedia's page on scientific opinion on climate change, you will find *more* studies. All showing the same thing. I actually opened up and read one of them.
So no. "Nearly all" is just wrong. You are wrong. Live with it.
You don't believe any another other wack-job conspiracies do you?
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Orwell was a cynic, and frankly Nineteen Eighty-Four, though great literature, has about as much in common with the real world and real human beings as Hansel and Gretel. All of the so-called totalitarian superstates that allegedly control the "truth" disappear remarkably abruptly as soon as their leader dies, and the survivors are quite quick at disavowing the whole rotten business. After Stalin died, Russians, up to the premier himself acknowledged that he was a murderer and a charlatan, and the country settled down into a merely awful dictatorship where everyone knew the state was lying, they just didn't care.
You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all the people all the time. Up-is-down Orwellian mind control is not a social equilibrium, it requires constant and extreme expenditure of energy and force to keep it going. And even if you're right, you don't address my point that if I'm wrong, democracy is pointless.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Religions and totalitarian governments manage to sustain lies through force and torture, through monopolization of all public discourse and co-option of all social authority. I have not recently met a climate scientist who put a rifle to my head and demanded a AGW loyalty oath, I'm constantly reminded in the popular press that AGW has "detractors," and many of these detractors are billionaires who shape the public discourse with media, entertainment, endowments to scholarly institutions and overt political campaigns. AGW skeptics are among America's leading citizens.
You may be right in extremis. But AGW and the HIV-AIDS hypothesis are not examples of coercive religious doublethink.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Some people's most recent African ancestors lived there within the last few hundred years and others were many millenia ago. Of course then there are the Berbers that are a fair-skinned African tribe :) In general being real specific about how a person can tell in general what race a person is is probably akin to creating Strong A.I., but that doesn't mean people can't do it. It'd also be hard to describe exactly how people can tell the difference between a Escher painting and a Dali, or a Beethoven and a Mozart song.
In a double blind study, I believe people could do a pretty fair job of sorting say a hundred pictures of people who's families have lived in certain parts of the world for the last 20 or so generations, at least as to what continent they were from.
There is a scientific device to measure albedo: fresh snow measuring .9 and charcoal .4, it would be a simple matter to measure the albedo of all the finalists from the last few olympics in swimming and sprinting and I believe there would be a strong correlation between albedo of skin and whether the person was a swimmer or sprinter.
For the record I don't consider myself racist, maybe it's not even a good thing that the brain can organize people by race, but I don't see any point in pretending it can't.
Religion is possible for a reasonable person as long as it makes no falsifiable claims. The existence and nature of God are not factual claims in the same class as "carbon dioxide reflect infrared radiation" or "HIV kills CD4 T cells ."
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Of course it isn't a coincidence. The parent said this:
i.e. the science issues exist, and the public policy people on the left are picking it up and pushing it. Given that the proposed solutions are generally left-wing ones (due to involving some interference with business), is it any wonder that left-wing political groups will pick up the science? Of course there is a causal link, but the parent's point was that it goes the other way. The political issues is caused by the scientific one (and it being a convenient argument for them), not the other way around.
I was pretty shocked to read the low level of response posted in the article "Confirming the Obvious" by Stephan Lewandowsky. He uses very disparaging phrasing and stoops to name calling in his article in an attempt to discredit his detractors. Why has name calling become a standard tool of attack? This may be (sadly) accepted as normal in the field of politics, but is it normal in science?
The purpose of science is to move the body of knowledge forward. It's done with work using a certain tested approach we call the scientific method. I think it's unbecoming for someone who publishes work in science to call critics and skeptics names. The work is either accurate or it is not. The work is either supported by the data or it is not.
Meanwhile the libertarians argue that they can somehow create an economic utopia
That's a straight out lie.
What world line are you tunneling in from? In this one it's totally true.
The world you experience is only a close approximation of reality.
I have not recently met a climate scientist who put a rifle to my head and demanded a AGW loyalty oath
And you probably haven't had a minister, rabbi, guru, or imam do that to you either. That's not how it's done. Instead, it's done by story.
I'm constantly reminded in the popular press that AGW has "detractors," and many of these detractors are billionaires who shape the public discourse with media, entertainment, endowments to scholarly institutions and overt political campaigns.
"Reminded" by whom? This is an example of a story. The antagonists of the story are "detractors" particularly "billionaires".
Let us recall a rival story. A story where tens of billions of dollars of public funds are waiting to be spent on global warming or whatever the flavor of the year environmental disaster is. All that they need is backup from climatologists to make that happen. Can that much money completely corrupt the field? I think so.
But AGW and the HIV-AIDS hypothesis are not examples of coercive religious doublethink.
Says you. You apparently have never been accused of betraying the human race merely because you have the wrong opinion on AGW. Or had to deal with hysterical people convinced that the very lives of their grandchildren are threatened by AGW (even though according to the studies that they cite, the effects of AGW take a long time to manifest). Or reason with people convinced that a one or two meter rise in sea level some how will be the death knell of humanity.
All the worst aspects of religion rear their ugly heads in AGW, the hysteria that the world is coming to an end, original sin (here, referring to industrial civilization), and of course, the need to force other people to do the righteous thing even if well, it isn't.
As I said, the collective does not have authority to steal freedoms from the individual, and when it tries, it always backfires and makes whatever the perceived problem is worse.
The collective always has the authority to steal freedoms from individuals. Even the smallest society, one without a government, will deny you the freedom to shit in the communal water supply. They'll shun you, they'll banish you, and they'll ignore the fact that someone just killed you because you had it coming by practicing your freedom to shit in the communal water supply.
That's reality, if you're part of a collective, you don't have total freedom.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
And no, I did not argue that 98% is nearly all, and 97% is not. What I argued was that given the criteria stated in the link to Skeptical Science that I was referring to, then the "domain of experts" is quite a bit larger than their narrow sample. Statistically, if the group they cited is 95%, it is almost certain that the broader domain of experts is a good bit LESS than 95%.
If you actually read the study that produces the 95% figure (Doran 2009), you'll see what the broader domain of experts say -- all the way down to those on the blogsphere.
I am not interested in more studies. Get a f*cking clue here, dude. I am not arguing with you about climate science. What I was criticizing were THE PARTICULAR STATEMENTS MADE BY THE PARTICULAR PEOPLE TO WHOM I WAS REFERRING.
Learn to read then. The wikipedia page I linked to links to a whole bunch of studies that show: NEARLY ALL climate scientists agree with the consensus opinion.
If you want to get in a general argument about climate science, go elsewhere.
The cognitive bubble is of professional interest to me -- as a scientist. As such, I fully appreciate the many ways ignorance protects itself. So... I have no interest in debating climate science with you, and never did.
On the other hand, it is indisputable that NEARLY ALL climate scientists agree with the consensus position. Given that 10% of people will agree to anything in a survey (yes, I have a degree in statistics as well as psychology), Doran 2009 also shows that NEARLY ALL scientists agree with the consensus full stop.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Want to go for the trifecta?
"Tell" was perhaps too strong a word. How about ""advise"? Certainly there's no point in having them if they can't even talk to the decision makers.
And note that I'm not advocating a single expert per subject or policy area, and then bear in mind that if you have 6 experts in a room you get 7 opinions.
The politician's job is to sift through those differing opinions and either choose between them or blend them into the best solution, for societally acceptable values of "best".
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
It sounds like you don't understand the "no true scotsman" fallacy, or what makes it fallacious. It is a fallacy because it is circular--i.e. in the statement "No true scotsman doesn't eat haggis," eating haggis defines one as being a scotsman. It purports to be a assertion about the real world that potentially could be true or false, but in fact it is a tautology that no real-world evidence can refute. The statement can be made non-fallacious by defining a true scotsman by an independent criterion that does not depend upon eating haggis. So, for example, "Nobody born in scotland does not eat haggis" is not an example of the fallacy, even though it is likely false.
So the study cited is not an example of the "no true scotsman" fallacy, because the criterion for being considered a climate scientist is independent of the answer to the survey question (as demonstrated by the fact that there was a very percentage of climate scientists who were not convinced of the reality of AGW; there can be no counterexamples at all to a no-true-scotsman assertion, because it is tautological)
That seems to me a pretty good definition of anthropogenic global warming. If you want to move the goalposts, you should conduct your own survey.
If this is really substantially misleading, one would expect that several of the 75 (out of 77 surveyed) highly published climate scientists who answered "yes" to the question would have stood up to say, "I answered YES to the question, but I don't really think that anthropogenic global warming is a major problem." So where are they? Or is the conspiracy keeping them quiet?
Peiser was obliged to retract his major criticism because it was shown not to be true (which seems to be fairly typical of Peiser)--he falsely claimed to have replicated the study and gotten different results. If he said anything that actually was true and meaningful (which would be very out of character), what was it?
So you are not American? That was the question I was asking. As to applied socialisms there are many different type of varying degrees applied in many different countries.
How do yuo knwo he isnt american? And you seem to be supporting my point so you confuse me AC.
No, they wouldn't. If they are doing scientific studies, they carefully measure and calibrate their samples, estimate the sampling error and uncertainty, and gauge from that. They don't just pull a percentage out of the air and call it good.
From this statement, I can only gauge that you are too incompetent to judge your own incompetence. Then again, you are denier *cough* skeptic *cough*. And as today's linked peer-reviewed academic article demonstrates quite aptly: AGW denial is comorbid with a number of other cognitive handicaps.
Gee, you don't work for one for those right-wind "think" tanks to you?
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Huff and puff all you want, but he's correct. Ending child labor, just like the 40-hour work week, were made possible by the increased productivity resulting from capital investment. If you don't believe this, just look at any poor country.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Businesses are inherently good.
Business is what makes all the things that we want, that we need, without which we cannot survive. They are inherently good.
Any form of 'evil' associated with any business comes from abuse of government power, the gov't steals the power and a business fights the gov't back by buying that power.
Businesses (specifically corporations) are legal persons. But what *kind* of person are they?
Psychopaths.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
This article is clearly Satan's work and I don't believe a word of it.
Oh, wait a minute - It's just change to 667. Maybe it's true after all.
42 hidden comments
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/08/replication-of-lewandowsky-survey/
I wonder how the survey will turn out when not done by shoddy scientists :)
You're saying that the brain can organise people by colour. You're then saying that colour is a component of "what continent they were from" or something. You're then saying that all this has something to do with race. You haven't provided any sort of clear defnition of race. Is it just "something about someone's appearance which allows us to make a good guess about where at least some ancestors came from"?
For example, a black friend recently got asked, in one of the weakest chat-up attempts I've heard for quite a while, "So, where are you from?" "London." "Yeah, but where are your parents from?" "London." "What about your grandparents?" "Well, what you're asking is... why am I black... my [sufficient ancestors] came from Jamaica..." Except that, if you go not too far further back, the ancestors of the Jamaican family would in turn have come from Africa. Is she "Afro-Londonian", "Afro-Caribbean", "[specific part of] African", "African", or none of the above? What phrenological measures or other facial features do we measure, and when do they become sufficiently distinct as to create a new race?
You're then saying that it's possible to compare the albedo of the different Olympic participants to see if some sports have different average albedo to others. I don't see where you're going with this. Are you assuming that the Olympics is an entirely meritocratic event, selecting the best of the best from across the world?
You are weird. Psychopaths? Businesses? The entities that are ran by INDIVIDUALS to make money by providing other individuals in the market with goods that the individual want or need at prices that are acceptable? Psychopaths?
As I said, you are weird.
MY OTHER COMMENTS
You are weird. Psychopaths? Businesses? The entities that are ran by INDIVIDUALS to make money by providing other individuals in the market with goods that the individual want or need at prices that are acceptable? Psychopaths?
As I said, you are weird.
Yeah I am. Noam Chomsky is also weird.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticisms_of_corporations
http://c4universe.com/blog/2011/12/06/the-psychopathic-tendencies-of-corporations/
Theres also a very interesting and informative documentary about it where they ask the question "What kind of person is a corporation?" and psychological analysis leads to the diagnosis of psychopathy.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
and that is any AGW, not just CO2.
Well, why don't try and find an AGW theory that doesn't involve CO2. Gee, that will be like half of them.
That is, quite literally, Statistics 101 material.
I have a degree in stats, and have worked for a market research company in the past. It doesn't matter how you study your population and calibrate -- you cannot change the inherent randomness in how people respond. As a rule of thumb, you can ask anybody anything, and get a positive response at least 10% of the time -- even for the patently ridiculous.
Jane Q Public, I think you are truly stupid, and in a clever way.
Keep some of your writings from this year, and look at them in 10 years time, and you will know what I mean.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
It's called Oppositional Defiant Personality Disorder and you can read about it here. For people not inclned to follow links, see if you think this matches the profile of your average Tea Partier, - Breitbarter, Ann Coulter denier:
From wiki:
Signs and symptoms
Throwing repeated temper tantrums
Excessively arguing with adults or other authority figures
Actively refusing to comply with requests and rules
Deliberately trying to annoy or upset others, or being easily annoyed by others
Blaming others for your mistakes
Having frequent outbursts of anger and resentment
Being spiteful and seeking revenge
Swearing or using obscene language
Saying mean and hateful things when upset
In the case of climate change deniers, you really have to break out people at the grassroots from the "thought leaders".
The Koch brothers are almost certainly sociopaths, that is, they are perfectly aware that the case for AGW is rock solid- their own studies have shown as much:
http://news.slashdot.org/story/12/07/29/127235/koch-bros-study-finds-global-warming-is-real-and-man-made
but they don't want to take the economic hit to their fortunes that cap and trade, for instance (which may now be too weak to do much good, thanks to their success in denying climate change ) would impose.
Legally, it just comes down to mass murder / crimes against humanity. They know the truth. They deny the truth. They do so to retain power, money and the status that comes with those things and also to thwart and frustrate the actions of people they loathe- to act out their spite. That's a sociopath.
At the grass roots level, you have a lot of spite and an unwillingness to admit you're wrong and your enemies were right about this or any topic. But why are the Ayn Randers and free market ideologues deniers in the first place? Answer: they are distinguished by having oppositional defiant personality disorder. In a nutshell, people with ODP loathe, deny and will defy -even unto their own personal destruction - the validity of any kind legitimate societal or earned authority. That's why they think they have the standing to argue with PhDs who have spent decades learning the arcana highly technical subject matter. That's why they think that their homegrown theories about climate and paleo-climatology and "common sense " rebuttals of scientists are somehow legitimate and deserving of being given equal footing to the those of research scientists. To do otherwise is to submit to and admit the legitimacy of, an authority they are incapable of earning will never personally possess.
Not only do they think their arguments have some scientific validity, but they also consider that they themselves are the best judges of which argument is correct. So like all mental illness, it's a sealed system with elaborate defenses against all intrusion by the forces of rationality.
The fact that a large portion of America can be accurately described this way is troubling, At least 20-30% of the population is "hard right" in this way on this topic and effectively incapable of processing reality. Since they're not going to change their mind, and they sense that they're outnumbered, they look for force multipliers in legislation and electioneering to keep themselves in power. Thus the new run at Jim Crow laws. Thus citizens united where money is used to substitute for democratic majority opinion. Thus also the serially lies that not only the Koch Brothers spew forth but also Paul Ryan indulges in. Lying is indeed a force multiplier against majority opinion; since the majority of people actually aren't crazy, they will coalesce on shared solution as soon as they coalesce on a shared perception of the problem. The goal then has to be to stop them from coalescing on a shared perception of the problem ,
Put it this way. The Koch brothers know what the truth is about global warming but they nevertheless lead a lie campaign with the specific goal to obscure that truth so no action is taken.
Ask yourself- who does that? Who literally sets about to destroy a large part human civilization so that their wealth and power will not be diminished and so their enemies will not be proved right? Who sets about to literally deconstrcut human civilization , killing hundreds of millions or billions of people in the process, so they can rebuild it to their liking?
What kind of person does that?
A person who needs to be stopped by the US government through any means necessary for the sake of humanity itself and all future generations That's who.
Well, the first year I took the flu vaccine, my immune system was affected. Whereas I frequently used to get colds or other viruses, that year I didn't seem to get a single virus after getting the shot. That sort of thing is pretty memorable when you normally spend half your winters with a runny nose, BTW. This experience was repeated after the next year's flu shot. At the time, I thought it was great.
Then in 2001, about 1 1/2 to 2 months after taking the flu shot, my immune system went crazy and I came down with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. After cutting out dairy in mid-2002 due to a discovery I had become extremely sensitive to milk products, I started to recover slowly until, not yet having made the connection, I got the flu vaccine again, leading after a few weeks to a major CFS relapse.
I had certainly caught the flu plenty of times prior to starting to take the flu shot, so it seems unlikely that any of the individual flu strains in the shot caused my immune system to go bonkers. So one of two things in the flu shots in 2002 and 2003 must have caused the immune dysfunctions: either the combination of the multiple viral strains in the shot, or one of the vaccine additives, of which thimerosal is the most likely candidate. I had been taking the shot for years and the viral strain mix from years earlier should have been completely different, and yet that first shot still caused significant immune system changes. Therefore the non-viral additives which stay constant over the years (and thimerosal in particular due to its mercury content) seem the most likely candidates.
Yeah, I realize I'm only an anecdote, not a statistic. However no matter how much I tried to talk to my doctor about it, he wouldn't listen. If there is systemic bias against observations that there are risks to the immune system from immunization shots, then that confirmation bias places past observations and statistics into question. It's quite possible that there is a segment of the population for whom something in vaccination shots pauses an elevated risk of immune dysfunction, but the existing medical mindset seems to be either that that segment can't exist and the possibility isn't worth consideration and investigation, or that that segment of the population can be sacrificed for the good of the rest.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
A huge number of people get flu shots every year. So just by random chance, a very large number of people will develop medical conditions, some of which will be immune related (although it is not known whether chronic fatigue syndrome is immune related), in proximity to getting a flu shot. And not getting sick one year is hardly such an odd event that it is reasonable to assume that your immune system has been affected. That's why anecdotes of this sort are pretty much worthless. You've seized upon a chronic illness that developed a couple of months after the shot, well after all of the ingredients of the vaccine were out of your system, and have decided to blame the vaccine. And you are specifically blaming thimerosal, even though the amount is very small (and we now know that this particular form of mercury is rapidly eliminated), and the symptoms of your illness do not resemble the symptoms of mercury toxicity. So it's not really very plausible, and the likelihood is very high that it's a coincidence. You can report it to VAERS, however, and in the unlikely even that a pattern develops, somebody will likely eventually do a proper study to determine whether there is any actual association. But post hoc ergo propter hoc is wired into our brains at a very low level, and we are particularly prone to seek causes for traumatic events--so I doubt if anything could ever convince you that your illness was not due to your vaccination.
I used to think I might be a libertarian, until I learned that many of them believe that there should be no such thing as personal property. Bleh.
Karma: Poor (Mostly affected by lame karma-joke sigs)
There are (amongst others) left and right libertarians. The ones I most closely align with tend to take personal property as a high principal and believe its defense is one of the truly valid things that government can do. You may want to look a little more.
You're right that intent may be considered, but re taking part vs just wanting to make trouble, you're standing in the minority in your interpretation of the moderation options.
I'm not making an interpretation, I'm pointing to the exact text of the FAQ. I'll quote it again: "Flamebait: Comments whose sole purpose is to insult and enrage." Note the word "purpose" in there. As to my standing in the minority, I'm reminded of an Abraham Lincoln quote:
"How many legs does a dog have, if we agree to call a tail a leg?"
"Five."
"Four. Calling a tail a leg, doesn't make it so."
What you are doing is, essentially, treating "-1, Flamebait" as if it means "-1, Not Insightful", and that's not what it means.
"The Greens lynched a hacker in Chicago. Last month, but I think the body's still hanging from the old Water Tower."
I used to get colds or viruses every winter. Lots of them, every winter without fail. For the multiple years that I took flu shots (>3), prior to getting sick with CFS, I did not get any symptoms of illnesses for the rest of the winter after receiving the flu vaccine. That's not a single coincidence, that's an established pattern with a clear demarcation point. Now that my immune system has partially recovered, I get normal colds/virus infections and symptoms regularly again.
Nope. I said some additive in the flu shot seems to have been the trigger, and that thimerosal was a possible (even leading) candidate. I also used to have lots of amalgam fillings which are known to slowly leach mercury into the body, so they may have contributed in setting up a sensitivity, or not. However I'm not dead set on it being thimerosal, just that something in the vaccine affected my immune system. If you're willing to propose a different additive in those vaccines as the root cause then I would be willing to listen, but if you completely discount my experiential evidence from the get go, then we're not going to get anywhere - which was the point in my original post.
CFS, particularly as used in the US, has no conclusive test, and is basically an umbrella category of common symptoms which may or may not have different causes. The Canadian definition is somewhat more narrow. Now here's the interesting thing: as my condition gradually improved over a number of years, I was able to notice that fatigue attacks (which initially were not associated with any other standard immune response symptoms other than dull muscle pain), gradually came to be associated with increasingly stronger immune response symptoms, starting with just pain in throat lymph glands, but eventually normalizing to more typical such as runny noses at the same time that the fatigue attack levels decreased. My system still gets messed up if I do anaerobic exercise and I have manage aerobic exercise levels carefully so I'm not completely recovered. Generally I'm much more sensitive to all kinds of stimulants including adrenaline. It's possible that elevated levels of adrenaline from those years with full-blown CFS may have created a sensitivity (sort of the opposite of insulin-tolerance in diabetics).
There have also been indications that many people with CFS have elevated levels of cytokines and that a common cause may be cytokine dysregulation. So maybe not everyone with a CFS diagnosis in the US has an immune system component, but I'm pretty certain that for myself, and many (most?) other CFS patients, there is a significant immune system component.Seriously, your attitude to CFS is very 20th century. There has been a lot of progress on research of this disease in the last 12 years and, while carefully controlled exercise has place in a rehabilitation program, much progress seems to be achieved by people who pay attention to immunological factors.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
Another link
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
Aw, heck. Just Google it.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
It's not a false dichotomy between the R and the D (the dichotomy is set there).
I assume government will need to set it up because I don't see a hell of a lot of non-government organizations stepping up to get our healthcare up to the standards of the UK (for example). Sure, there are a few non-profits out there that help the worst off of the bad off, but that's a far cry from a safety net.
I pose the opposite question to you: What makes you think privatization is the answer given that it has failed to address the problem to date? What juju will make it miraculously start working?
Elevated cytokines are not necessarily diagnostic of immune dysfunction. In animal studies, chronic stress alone is sufficient to elevate some cytokines, and there is evidence of a link between activation of beta-adrenergic adrenaline receptors and cytokine production. Of course, being ill is stressful. So disturbance of cytokine levels could be an effect rather than a cause. Or of course, it could be both; there could be a vicious circle, in which stress stimulates cytokine production, which causes you to feel ill and anxious, further elevating blood adrenaline, which stimulates further cytokine production, which causes you to feel worse and more stressed, etc. Some people may be more sensitive to this than others, or it might be triggered by some sort of infection and then become self-sustaining--sort of the way that some people can become a bit anxious, which causes them to breathe faster, which blows off CO2, changing the pH of their blood, which causes them to feel weird, which leads them to be more anxious and breathe even faster, etc., etc. So an exercise/rehabilitation program may turn out to be the CFS equivalent of breathing into a bag.
In 2002, at the first peak of my illness, I also showed classic symptoms of depression (nobody could tell me what was wrong with me even though I felt like crap - it's depressing). So a lot of people recommended exercise to treat the depression and every time I tried, I triggered a massive fatigue attack. I was lucky that the one exercise that I did continue to do, social dancing, was a short interval aerobic exercise, which also produces endorphins that helped counter the depression. It helped me avoid dropping to as low an emotional and physical bottom as most other CFS patients, but every time I went dancing there was a huge negative physical impact immediately afterwards. It wasn't until I removed dairy products from my diet that my condition actually started, ever so slowly, to improve. So I had an apparent immune system-related trigger (delayed vaccination response), I didn't start seriously improving until removing immune system irritants, and had an immune-related relapse. But according to you, the immune system wasn't a factor? That's ridiculous.
Look, I'm not saying that the pathways aren't complicated and that you can't have other triggers or co-factors (chemical exposure damage/stress, physical or emotional stress), but in every one of your responses you just keep on selectively ignoring all my observations that indicate significant immunological factors because they don't match your preconceptions. That's a poor excuse for scientific process.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
It is not uncommon to hear amateurs pontificating to scientists about what the "scientific process" should be. And almost invariably, what they are advocating is the opposite of science—a kind of superstitious thinking that is precisely what the disciplines of science, statistics, experimental controls, blinded analysis, etc., have been developed to counteract, dressed up with "sciencey" jargon, what Richard Feynman famously characterized as "cargo cult science".
As human beings, we are all prone to superstitious thinking. Our brains are hyperaware of connections and associations, to the point of often seeing them where they do not actually exist, and this is even more exaggerated where risks are concerned. It is easy to understand why "jumping to conclusions" has been favored by evolution—the rabbit cannot afford to think, "Perhaps the next fox will be friendly." We are particularly prone to see exaggerated significance in "runs" of behavior. Any sports fan will tell you that their favorite player or team has periods in which they are "hot" or "cold," even though numerous statistical analyses have shown that such runs occur no more frequently than expected from random fluctuations about a mean. Such erroneous perceptions often have associated with them an emotional conviction of great meaning and certainty. So you have attached great significance to the fact that you had a run of of years with colds, and then a run without colds (something that tends to happen with greater frequency as we get older and develop immunity to many of the common pathogens around us), and have developed an unshakeable conviction that this was associated with your vaccination, and also with your illness. In fact, you were undoubtedly exposed to numerous novel substances and organisms over that period of time, but your mind has likely seized upon vaccination because the experience of receiving an injection stands our more prominently in your mind because being stuck with a syringe is a more unusual experience than the routine cuts and scrapes that are constantly introducing bacteria, viruses, and environmental contaminants into our bloodstreams.
One of the reasons why doing science requires experience and training is that we have to learn the hard way just how often that such convictions, which often arrive in our minds with a sense of great clarity and certainty, turn out to be mistaken when subjected to the hard discipline of scientific analysis. So it is certainly possible that CFS is some sort of immune dysfunction (perhaps even interacting with a vaccination), just as it is possible that it is some sort of chronic infection, and these are hypotheses worth investigating (and they have, indeed, been investigated for quite a few years, so far without major insights), but your own experience, no matter how compelling it feels to you, is very weak evidence from a scientific perspective.
Sure but we weren't debating limited liability, I was just pointing out that calling libertarians pro-corperate is like saying the jews and muslims must be great friends because they both refuse to eat pork.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
How much is caused by our CO2 emissions versus our considerable water vapor emissions?
Is it really wise to "fix" the problem with solutions that often replace CO2 with more water vapor?
This is a late reply but I had to respond.
It is impossible for water vapor to be a driver of global warming because the level of water vapor in the atmosphere is strictly regulated by temperature. If the level of water vapor rises too high it will rather quickly precipitate out of the atmosphere in the form of rain, snow or dew. If it gets low it will evaporate into the atmosphere from available sources of water and atmospheric levels will rise.
On the other hand CO2 remains a gas at any temperature normally encountered on the Earth so the level of it remains relatively stable. The level of CO2 in the atmosphere is controlled by the amount of carbon in the carbon cycle. The carbon cycle balances carbon between the atmosphere, the hydrosphere and the biosphere (with a minor contribution from the geosphere). By adding CO2 to the atmosphere we are adding carbon to the active carbon cycle thus increasing carbon in all of those spheres.
In answer to your first question scientists estimate that humans are responsible for 80-120% of the temperature change that's occurred in the past 40 years.
There is something of a data set that can be used for climate models, but such models certainly aren't perfect and have a whole bunch of assumptions in them that deserve questioning as well, particularly because the predictions of those models are frequently unreliable.
I think you fundamentally misunderstand climate models. They essentially don't use data. They are not exercises in statistical curve fittings. As much as possible they use the actual physical relations derived from studying climate. Climate data is only useful to climate models for comparing to climate model output. For the most part climate models are doing a decent job.
Here are a couple of FAQ's from one of the major climate modelers for your edification:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/11/faq-on-climate-models/
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/01/faq-on-climate-models-part-ii/
LOL, talk about conspiracy.
The only place Michael Mann's scientific practices are considered dubious in the the right wind denialosphere. There have been any number of investigations of him by competent authorities (part of the conspiracy in your book) that have turned up nothing. His original hockey stick graph has been borne out by more than a dozen studies using different data since it came out. If you can't attack the science attack the mann.
No raw data has been destroyed, only working copies that were no longer needed. The original raw data that everyone is so exercised about at EAU was data they got from different national weather services around the world and are still available from the original sources.
But then those truths don't fit your worldview so I doubt you'll listen to me.
Will the left get behind the gas industry?
Considering that natural gas only slows down the problem but doesn't eliminate it then it's only a stopgap measure on the way to carbon neutrality.
As part of my professional life I have coded and used the genetic algorithm, have read extensively on it, and I am constantly amazed by the cognitive dissonance that must make it nearly impossible for the social-liberal-economic-liberals (aka, the "left") to think clearly. The genetic algorithm is arguably the single most powerful algorithm we know of because of its ability to solve problems that are not even stated to be problems. Yet believing in the genetic algorithm is essentially to believe in evolution, while believing in free-markets is essentially to believe in the genetic algorithm. Both are driven by the mathematics that use "success" as a predictor of future existence, whether we are discussing a genetic line (e.g., rats) or an economic line (fast food corporations). Still, one extreme of our political world embraces evolution and rejects free-markets while the other extreme embraces free-markets yet rejects evolution (remember, these ARE the extremes). Unfortunately, correlation is not causation, as this article appears forget in its haste to point out once again that people they don't like are idiots (a classic ad hominum attack).
"There is no god but allah" - well, they got it half right.
lumping conspiracy theorists in with skeptics.
And with very little distinction between the two.
How scientific.
You are right. I meant of course, not Mann, but the Climate Research Unit, headed by Phil Jones. As I understand it, the accusation still stands that the CRU fostered "a climate of non-disclosure", which is contrary to good scientific practice and has set back public understanding of climate change considerably by delivering ammunition to the deniers.