Slashdot Mirror
Lamar Smith, Future Chairman For the House Committee On Science, Space, and Tech
An anonymous reader writes "Lamar Smith, a global warming skeptic, will become the new chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. Someone who disagrees with the vast majority of scientists will be given partial jurisdiction over NASA, EPA, DOE, NSF, NOAA, and the USGS. When will candidates who are actually qualified to represent science or at a minimum show an interest in it be the representatives of science with regard to political decision-making?"
Please vote them in to office.
I hope this caused some synapses to fire.
If he were merely a skeptic, that's ok; a skeptic is a person who's willing to look at the data and see what they say.
However, far too many of the people who call themselves "skeptics" are in fact not skeptics at all, but global-warming deniers: they don't care what the data is, and aren't really interested in learning. They're not really skeptical, because they already have their conclusion, and are only interested in arguments that support it.
To quote S. Fred Singer, "The deniers are giving us skeptics a bad name."
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
People like this are the reason that scientists need to be very careful to present their data in an unbiased fashion. The temptation to show "simple" or "clear" data that supports something they are sure is true needs to be resisted. Any evidence that the scientists are in any way biasing their data can be used politically to discredit the entire field.
It looks like the GOP doesn't think they have done a thorough enough job of convincing us that they have all either sold out or lost their freaking minds. Or both.
You can't disagree with facts. You can be ignorant of them, but you can't disagree as they are not matters of opinion. Sometimes there are not two sides, the earth is round, the sun is the center of the solar system, the earth is billions of years old.
At least he is replacing the "lies from the pit of hell" moron.
The real reason for pushback against the global warmist 'consensus' is that it is frankly both scientific and political. It starts with observations of global climate, and ends up with the undeniable and unquestionable conclusion that First-World governments must do whatever it takes to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions in their countries. The entire chain of reasoning from observation to required government policy has been so sanctified that any one who questions or doubts even the tiniest aspect of it is labeled a "denier", implying that they are just as bad or worse than those who deny the Holucaust.
It's very puzzling that scientist's predictions of how an imperfectly-understood chaotic system will behave in the future, and recommendations for one particular policy approach to dealing with it, have achieved the inerrant status of Holy Writ, so that those who question any aspect of it must be burned at the stake.
I know SOPA is more relevant to slashdot, but I think climate change is a bigger concern here.
Yeah, Mesopotamian creation myths showed a flat Earth. So what? They were operating with a very different belief system than modern empiricism, or even post Pythagorean logic. Is that what you want to make decisions with? Divine inspiration from Enki?
That's the only way you are going to get to the idea of a flat Earth.
FACT: Anyone who can do basic geometry can prove the Earth is not flat. Pythagoras knew it 2500 years ago.
Likewise with global warming. It's a FACT that the Earth is getting warmer. Sea levels all over the world are going up. There is no possible explanation for it other than the average temperature is increasing unless you believe some magic sky daddy is creating water to trick us.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Trends_in_global_average_absolute_sea_level,_1870-2008_(US_EPA).png
Now the data for anthropogenic global warming is slightly less compelling, but none the less it is compelling. If you don't want to accept it, fine. But I betcha that you are going to look like a complete boob some time in the future.
Sorry, but conspiracy theories are complete horseshit. It's EXACTLY the same logical fallacy that led Republicans to believe they were going to win the election (left wing media controls the polls and they are manipulating the results).
Let me guess. You thought Romney was going to win, didn't you?
You have to account, though, for the truth that not all things claimed to be facts, particularly in politicized subjects, are actually facts. For example, temperature measurements are facts, though their accuracy can be questioned. Global temperature, though, is not a fact: it is an extraction on facts (the temperature readings) filtered through assumptions and patches (like assuming that temperature changes smoothly and uniformly between places where temperatures are measured). On top of those extrapolations, people have layered conclusions, some of which are reasonable (which does not make them facts but inferences), some of which are not. But it's pretty clear that just arguing that AGW is a fact won't get you anywhere, because the totality of what is commonly meant by that term is not a fact or set of facts, though it does include some facts, even if it later turns out to have reached a correct conclusion. "Shut up" is rarely an effective argument.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
The candidate (Lamar Smith) is not there to represent science, so he doesn't really need to be qualified for that. He's not there to represent NASA, EPA, DOE, NSF, NOAA, and the USGS. He's there to represent the people who elected him, and more broadly all of the people of the US. Just playing devil's advocate here. Not everyone in the US agrees with all things science.
"The people" elected him to represent their district. A political machine made him chair of the committee.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
"If a scientist, or a vast majority of scientists, say something is true, it is considered heresy to even dare to question it.".
Heresy is an interesting concept. Maybe I've not been around the right people, but the only people I've seen to cry heresy are the anti-global-warming folks. Most of the pro folks tend to quote facts and studies, while the anti folks say things like "I've seen that weather changes, so therefore, though I've never studied it I am pretty sure that all of the people who *have* studied it are wrong." Now to me that sounds an awful lot like Copernicus being accused of heresy because he tried to use evidence to convince people of something they knew nothing about but desperately wanted to be wrong.
You should question scientists. That is good. That is science. But if you walk up to someone who has spent their life studying something and accuse them of being wrong with no facts to back you up, you are not questioning. You are denying. And that's why nobody takes you seriously. It's not an question of heresy and orthodoxy, it's a question of making up your mind without going through that tedious fact-collecting step.
They laughed at Einstein. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. And you, sir, are no Einstein.
In the link parent provides, Hall responds to the "ScienceInsider" interviewer with the phrase "I'm still waiting for some believable science...". Which is telling. A person tells you that a penny doubled each day for a week is $0.64, And for 2 weeks is $ 81.92, and for a month is $10,737,418.24, and he calls you a bald faced liar because its not believable. After the Challenger disaster, there were two groups of scientists at NASA. One who simply couldn't believe that the foam insulating tiles could impart enough energy to damage the wing of the space shuttle. The logic was that after you hit a Styrofoam cooler lid on the highway it explodes in a shower of beads and your cars is too strong to be bothered. The other group, the "Sliderule Engineers" simply said do the math. At the velocity this ship is traveling, the foam will impart over a ton and a half of force. So they build a mockup, built a model space shuttle wing, and fired a foam block at it with reentry velocity. It nearly tore the wing in half. Science doesn't care what you believe in. God maybe cares. Physics not so much. This is the profound stupidity of putting people in key decision making positions about the future of science in this country who ignore facts that don't mix well with their beliefs or vested interests. Sadly, their ignorance is paid for by American and nonAmericans alike everywhere.