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Montana Legislator Introduces Bills To Give His State His Own Science (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The legislator in question is Republican Joe Read, who represents an area north of Missoula, home of many fine scientists at the University of Montana. Read has eight bills under consideration in the current session of the legislature, and two of those focus on climate change. One of them focuses on his state's role in any greenhouse gas regulatory program that would be instituted under a future president. Read is apparently unaware of past legal precedent indicating that the federal government has the legal ability to regulate pollutants. Instead, the preamble of the bill seemingly argues that Montana's emissions are all due to commerce that takes place within the state, and thus "any federal greenhouse gas regulatory program in the form of law or rule violates the 10th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States."
As a result, the bill would prohibit state agencies, officials, and employees from doing anything to cooperate with federal efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions. If passed, the Montana government "may not implement or enforce in any way any federal regulation, rule, or policy implementing a federal greenhouse gas regulatory program." But if you thought Read's grasp of constitutional law was shaky, you should check out his reason for objecting to doing anything about climate change. That's laid out in his second bill, which targets both science education and in-state programs designed to reduce carbon emissions. And it doesn't mince words, suggesting that pretty much all the scientists have it wrong: "the [US] National Climate Assessment makes the same errors as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the National Academy of Sciences is also fundamentally wrong about climate change."
As a result, the bill would prohibit state agencies, officials, and employees from doing anything to cooperate with federal efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions. If passed, the Montana government "may not implement or enforce in any way any federal regulation, rule, or policy implementing a federal greenhouse gas regulatory program." But if you thought Read's grasp of constitutional law was shaky, you should check out his reason for objecting to doing anything about climate change. That's laid out in his second bill, which targets both science education and in-state programs designed to reduce carbon emissions. And it doesn't mince words, suggesting that pretty much all the scientists have it wrong: "the [US] National Climate Assessment makes the same errors as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the National Academy of Sciences is also fundamentally wrong about climate change."
Poor Idaho, so far from Heaven and so close to Montana...
For CO2 emissions? Sounds like a great idea!!!
And Montana is that extra special breed of republican corruption. Rememeber whitefish energy and Ryan Zinke?
The first person to know everything. Impressive.
Weed grown in California and consumed in California is constitutionally outside the jurisdiction of the DEA because no matter what Congress says, the butterfly effect does not expand the ICC into a general warrant to regulate anything that might remotely impact interstate commerce. Weed grown in California and sold illegally in another state is very much a federal manner per the the ICC.
Same with guns.
Same with pollution that can be reasonably shown to have either no interstate transmission or its interstate transmission does not meaningful damage to people, property or commerce.
Only muddle-headed morons treat SCOTUS precedence with real reverence. Much of the time the federal courts, including the SCOTUS, make stuff up as they go. You know how we go qualified immunity for cops and absolute immunity for prosecutors acting in a court? Because the SCOTUS decided it made sense in relation to other laws that didn't specify anything about their liability if they break the law in good faith. Why are parts of the Bill of Rights applied to the states via incorporation and others not? Because the SCOTUS said so. No "wow, damn, that's a good reason" argument, more like "meh, we don't think this should apply."
Ignoring federal weapons regulations? Nope Ignoring federal emissions regulations? Nope Ignoring federal drug regulations? Fine, just fine Also: science isn't about consensus, it's about truth. The instant you start rolling out "pretty much all" or "97% of scientists" say, you're INSTANTLY anti-science.
Mr. Read should definitely watch One Strange Rock on Netflix, just to see how incredibly the connected the world really is. Ergo, what happens in and outside of Montana are connected.
The guy is a fucking idiot.
Either the guy is totally fucking insane OR he had a huge amount of money donated, Either way he should be locked up in either a nuthouse or jail ( for life )
This effort to write into law and enforce bad science through education reminds me of the battles over evolution. Science education should be as agnostic as possible to any viewpoint and should be teaching the lastest widely-held scientific understanding. We don't teach older models of the atom once Bohr's came along, and no other model of DNA beyond the double helix is taught. If our understanding of climate and CO2 changes in the future, we will teach that, but for now, an overwhelming majority (>90%) of the scientific community holds that climate change is real and is human-activity driven.
The left attacks this guy with the claim that the feds have jurisdiction over this, while ignoring that the president has full jurisdiction over national security and border control.
Constant hypocrisy. No values. No honor.
The Tenth Amendment Says,
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
What this says is, if the Constitution does not delegate the power (to limit Greenhouse gas) to the Federal Government and it does not prohibit the state from taking that power, the state of Montana is fully justified in claiming that authority.
Sure, some may say there are legal precedents that allow the Feds to make such regulations over the states. But I am thankful some legislators, at least, have the honesty and fortitude to claim the rights given to them by the Supreme Law of the Land. And legal precedents aside, no Judge is the Supreme Law of the Land.
So, is it States Rights to stand up to federal laws you don't like, or is it complete idiocy and those wise people in the federal government know better? We have a state--California--engaging in rhetoric and action that would make John Calhoun's heart swell with pride for its open defiance of any federal policy that might limit the flood gates that are swamping the labor market. Heck, we had the governor of Oregon boast that she would try to start what is tantamount to a mutiny in the National Guard by ordering them to disobey a federal deployment order. And now that we've established the precedent that States Rights (a long discredited concept with an ugly racist past) are back again, we suddenly turn 180 degrees and think States Rights are for the stupids? How do you people do this without brain damage from all the cognitive dissonance?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
The Supreme Court in Wickard v. Filburn has already ruled that activities within a state that affect interstate commerce can be federally regulated as such. So expect this law to be struck down almost immediately should it be passed.
You forgot to mention the most obvious example of sanctuary cities, where California has made it ILLEGAL to corporate with federal officials. Immigration and border control are in the Constitution, the EPA is not. Yet CA is fine doing what they do, but this guy is off his rocker?
I think he is doing a great statement that could be very instructional.
Repeatable experimental observation that can factually prove or disprove a hypothesis is a good basis for science.
"Tempers are wearing thin. Let's just hope some robot doesn't kill everybody." --Bender
I am surprised he took the time to write it. Are the Montana state legislators even paid? I doubt it.
Weed grown in California and consumed in California is constitutionally outside the jurisdiction of the DEA because no matter what Congress says, the butterfly effect does not expand the ICC into a general warrant to regulate anything that might remotely impact interstate commerce.
In Wickard v. Filburn and Gonzales v. Raich, the US Supreme Court reached the opposite conclusion. Even plants grown for personal use theoretically compete in the market with plants sold interstate.
Repeatable experimental observation that can factually prove or disprove a hypothesis is a good basis for science.
Suppose, for instance, some scientists claim that we need to build a higher levee around a lake to reduce the risk of catastrophic flooding. What would be the appropriate response from the lawmakers ?
Many are saying that the "evolution is a fact" extremists are next. Intelligent design disproved evolution decades ago but the liberal media never talks of it.
Humanity is too stupid to survive.Great 'murica leads the way with a smile!
How about Patrick Moore, former President of Greenpeace who now has a different take on climate change?
No sanity. Permanent projection. No care.
The fact is, that the MAJORITY of CO2 is actually from GDP (i.e. commerce), and not individuals.
However, to claim that it is all due to Commerce is as much of a joke as those that say that normalization should be based on per capita.
The problem with CO2 is that extremists on both sides are trying to control it. And both without any science or logic to back it up.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Go read up the definition. Unless you intend to produce CO2 it is a pollutant.
"The legislator in question is Republican"
The party affiliation was obvious from the title.
Either that or else Joe "Fossil-Fuel-Industry-Bitch" Read.
Or just plain dishonest. Which is the case here? You forgot the fifth group: idealogues who NEED a story that helps them support their insanity as rational.
Your group 1 does not exist.
Your group 2 does not exist,
Your group 3 does not exist, because you added a caveat that does not exist to them.
Your group 4 and 5 does.
You invented 1 and 2 so that you could deny AGW while pretending you're in the moderate rational middle. Without them your group 3, those that don't accept that the problem is a real big one with dangerous consequences is still a massive outlier and not in the middle of anything.
Suppose, for instance, some scientists claim that we need to build a higher levee around a lake to reduce the risk of catastrophic flooding. What would be the appropriate response from the lawmakers ?
Invest heavily in disaster recovery companies in the area. Spend some time at "town hall" meetings and promise action. Then bicker, argue, debate about whether we can afford the proposed 12-foot improvement, or will a 6-inch improvement do? Go through environmental impact studies and archaeological surveys. Then disregard the findings of all, and build a levee that is 17 inches taller out of shredded kitchen sponges.
Then when the levee inevitable fails, direct billions of dollars to the aforementioned disaster recovery companies. Retire in the Bahamas, and hope that you die before the rising seas wash away your house.
Everybody talks about climate change and, yes, it is important. However, this is not the only reason to have regulations.
There is also the quality of life issue. When I read about the black snow in Siberia or how some authorities are "painting" white the contamination for it not to be seen, I realize how short minded they are. They only can see immediate returns and have no idea what they are doing to their own familiars and descendants. A worm have a better brain than them.
Quality of life doesn't mean to have the latest gadgets, to be able to use electricity all the year, to waste water without worry every moment, to ask for plastics bags in the supermarket and trash them wherever we like or to contaminate the air with whatever big unregulated diesel or gasoline engine we can find in the market.
Quality of life is to be able to wake up in the morning, to open the windows and breath pure air. To have normal storms and not super storms. To know that our seas are full of vibrant life and that our food it is healthy. Quality of life is to have a guarantee that our grand-grandchildren will have even a better living environment that the one we have today.
The governor was pictured in a KKK hood in his college yearbook, he also advocates for killing live born babies as an abortion law.
The lt. governor has been accused of rape by multiple women, but is not likely to face impeachment for his character flaws.
"the individuals in question are Democrats"
Party affiliation is obvious with KKK and rapist parts.
This guy is totally right, and we should all strongly encourage this. By teaching this more acceptable version of science, that doesn't require the same level of scientific rigor will generate a generation of "new scientists" with a great acceptable perspective. I am sure with their "special science" they will be snapped by scientific institutions worldwide and will definitely benefit America, its economy and will push the USA further to the leading edge of technology.
Oh by the way, that was sarcasm.... i mean "special insight".
Every article I read like this causes me to celebrate my future (non-USA) job prospects and saddens me for every USA child diminished by their "leaders". What happened to the USA frontier can-do attitude? Seems like it's more Luddite now, so very very sad.
Hate science.
We're talking about a man who has deliberately chosen to wear a brown suit and orange shirt on his official photograph, along with an expression that suggests he has more than one problem with gas emissions.
It's amazing how many politicians appear to have read about the Indiana Pi bill and drawn the conclusion that those are the footsteps they'd like to follow in.
With the emphasis on "a". Repeatability is not achievable for some branches of science where experiments can't be run. Paleontology, for example.
My gut tells me when I'm being conned; I don't need to be an expert to know when I'm being lied to.
Truth is simple; when the "experts" give you a complicated non-answer it's BS.
I'm fed up with "mathematicians" going on about irrational numbers; they can't even give an exact answer--just a string of digits that seems to keep going on forever.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
It doesn't say that there should be a military either. Never seen any of you fuckwits demand the military be disbanded and only states should have the right to have armed forces.
On the other hand, they could invest heavily in construction companies then build a 24 ft improvement that will bankrupt the city even though the levee will crumble from old age long before the waters ever rise enough to ever even reach its base. Meanwhile, sell your lake front property before the ugly levee tanks the property value and retire in the Bahamas.
The seas are not predicted to have significant rise for another 100 years, so you'll be dead anyway.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.” - Isaac Asimov
THE SOFTWARE, IT NO WORKY!!!
Natural gas pipelines have a pipeline inside the state owned by one company, then a distinct company owns a short interconnect to cross state borders. All of which is to avoid federal regulation on the miles of pipelines within the state.
It's a states' rights issue and it's well known that the federal government has limitations of regulation of activities within a single state. /. headline would be more friendly if it is a green topic such as Montana passing a law to declare solar power generation within the state as state only and prevent state employees from communicating with the federal government.
But personally grown items consumed on personal property interferes with interstate commerce because you should be forced to buy it from others if you are producing TOO MUCH...
I mean seriously, if your yield is too high not only can't you sell it, but you can't produce it either?
All this bill is doing is prohibiting the state spending money to enforce or assist in the enforcement of federal law, which it is under no legal obligation to do anyway.
This is no different than all of those states that passed laws prohibiting cooperation with enforcing immigration law.
Bottom line is that States are independent from Federal and have no legal duty or obligation to enforce any federal law.
Of course, the federal government is very good at saying things like, "well, if you want this highway money, you will pass mirroring state legislation and contract yourselves to enforce it.." a form of legalized extortion.
That makes these laws largely symbolic anyway, but still.. it's nothing to get your panties in a twist over.
I'm sure that the Republican Senator loves Presidential Emergency powers, and wouldn't mind at all if his bill is overridden by Presidential Emergency powers.
This editorializing doesn't help:
Read is apparently unaware of past legal precedent indicating that the federal government has the legal ability to regulate pollutants
California's state legislature regularly passes laws regarding pollutants, so do several others. This "apparently unaware" dig is just a form of ad hominem attack.
For "lawmakers" - a dumb title itself, as though we needed more laws, instead of ones that work and make sense - and are enforced uniformly, instead of on the just-us system. This guy is a moron, true, but he's got plenty of company...after all, we have a bartender in congress now who doesn't know the branches of government...and that's just skimming the obvious surface of idiocy, and not even moving on to the corruption that allows them all to retire eventually rich on what actually isn't that great a paycheck for someone who has to live in DC and commute home as well....
We allow them to exempt themselves from laws they make for us -
Insider trading. (Pelosi comes to mind, but it's really all of 'em.
Health care - they get special, and free. We get plans where the copay is more than I pay without any insurance at all.
Free armed guards - while they want "sensible gun control" for the rest of us.
I could go on endlessly, mention their special pension system that can't go broke...and on and on.
I somehow don't think we kept our republic, as was warned by the founders.
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
This crap keeps coming up. Over and over again.
Church and community matter more than science. Their reality is defined by their fucking "thoughts and prayers".
They're going to kill us all in the long run.
Only on /. and RT/Fox News can you find morons who would defend this bozo. Or the President. Or the modern day Republican Party. Or Putin.
And strangely, that same half of the anonymous coward persona would dismiss the results of scientific studies, should those results disagree with any of the above.
Coincidence, I am certain.
What would be the appropriate response from the lawmakers ?
Validate the claim. Get realistic probabilities of floods foretasted against known and understood weather patterns. Do a cost benefit analysis on possible solutions. What if the problem was because of mismanagement at a water reservoir? It's better to address the mismanagement instead of undertaking a huge building project that doesn't solve the actual problem that could be solved with simple correction at a specific facility.
some scientists claim that we need to build a higher levee around a lake to reduce the risk of catastrophic flooding.
The scientists made a mistake. What has been studied? The rates of risk, how to reduce risk, flooding in general, this specific lake and local patterns that change flood patterns? What?
The appropriate statement to lawmakers should be something like: "Studying X and because of Y there are increased chances of flooding in lake by Z % if Y continues to affect X. Our recommendation: because solving X is too hard because A we recommend B. If B cannot be done C and D would help by E%". Each letter should have independent studies (note multiple) verifying each claim.
When I hear "Scientists claim X solution." I hear: a patron of the Big X pushing an agenda. They may not be and they may be correct but I don't know that and lawmakers should be skeptical whenever someone comes selling a bridge.
I don't like hearing about political solutions from scientists. That isn't their job and that isn't part of science.
As an aside, a levee isn't a good idea for a lake flooding. Lakes are fed by rivers and irrigation that are usually heavily controlled by the Feds and local water authorities. I just happened to experience a lake and river flooding recently. For decades local water authorities wanted an additional reservoir to address flooding for heavy snow pack years (was even planned back in the 30/40's but war). Not only would a reservoir help the flooding issue by holding flood water, it would also help local business and farmers with additional water storage (water is gold to farmers). A levee would have been a huge waste of money that would have been a sunk cost. Those years of high risk flooding are rare and if a levee would have been built I would have been a monumental waste of time and money with zero return. An additional reservoir, has low cost of maintenance and would contribute to the local economy.
CO2 is not a pollutant. He is quite brilliant challenging the federal government. Its (sic) about time someone is defending States rights.
Interesting. If Donald's packed SC decided to overturn Roe vs wade (quite likely) and Congress decide to pass national anti-abortion legislation, would you argue "states rights" should allow states to permit abortion?
In Texas the very "local autonomy" Republicans passed a state law to prevent Texas cities from prohibiting fracking within in city limits.
"States rights" and "local autonomy" are almost always just excuses for wanting to reject science or laws the proponents just "don't like."
Whereas, the Constitution of the United States has supremacy over any foreign law including but not limited to Shari-ah Law of Gravitation, Law of Thermodynamics, and Laws of Motion,
Whereas, the State Constitution of Montana has supremacy over the US Federal Constitution,
Wheres, this SLOT prevents from Montanans from creating perpetual motion machines, or creating engines with more than 100% thermal efficiency,
It has been resolved that
This law has been repealed in Montana, and no machine or physical process in this state shall obey the aforementioned unconstitutional second law of thermodynamics.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Scientists are a special type of person who are not entitled to protection under the first amendment?
In your world, who is allowed to promote political solutions? My guess is you and only people you agree with.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Both of them. Alone. Let 'em fight it out.
Spit.
I never said what was allowed or not. That's on you. I said what I don't like. I also said that the job of a scientist isn't to push politics. Do you like scientists that push for more fossil fuels because global warming is a lie and carbon dioxide good? Are they allowed to? Is it good science? If the only difference is that you agree with one position and not the other then that says more about you than me.
Those decisions rely on finding the word "affects" in the Interstate Commerce clause.
The actual text is "To regulate commerce [...] among the several states". The court in Wickard interpreted "regulate" to include "protect from unfair intrastate competition".
Yet another coward republican peddling ignorant opinions.
The new name for this is Sanctuary Science. We're accepting all flat-earthers, anti-vaxers, anti-GMOers, no nuke NIMBYs.
Just another day in Paradise
And anti-intellectual! So says Slashdot.
In what way are experiments not repeatable in Paleontology?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I did not know this before!
The Golden Gate Bridge and Manhattan would be underwater, these idiots would be up to their necks in seawater, and they'd still be saying "It's normal! The Earth's weather just does this! THE SCIENCE IS WRONG, HUMANS DIDN'T CAUSE THIS! God gave us the Earth, we can do what we want with it! Human civilization can't POSSIBLY change the weather! We can burn all the fossil fuels we want, God said so! Jesus will come back and take us all to Heaven, none of this will matter! It's all part of God's Plan for us! WE MUST ENDURE!" or whatever other fucktarded nonsense they want to trot out to keep their delusions intact, just like drug addicts defending their addiction.
As a side note, I'd say that 'what will destroy the Human species' is right now a dead heat between 'human-caused climate change', 'nuclear war (with Russia and/or North Korea and/or China)', and 'pandemic due to the anti-vaxxer movement'. The only reason I'm not getting shit-faced drunk every day is I know The End won't come before I'm long dead and buried.
I didn't say experiments weren't repeatable in paleontology, I said you can't run experiments. It's an historical science. It just works differently. For a popular science treatment of this topic, see Stephen Jay Gould's Wonderful Life.
All of them. Dumb as stumps. There must be something in the water.
=^..^= all your rodent are belong to us
You can run experiments in Paleontology. I’m not sure what you are saying here.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
The feds may not commandeer local political entities. The best they can do is offer money, then refuse it with clear, Congressionally-supplied rules, so the locality can make the choice between obeying and the money.
This is at the root of the sanctuary city stuff. Congres only allowed for withholding money for one issue, and maybe not even that, which is what is being argued in various court cases.
Whether his science is right is a political issue for the voters. But the state can indeed force its organizations to ignore enforcing federal law and not help, excepting for giving up the federal money for clear rules.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
...I thought it was going to be some more God and Jesus bullshit, forcing "intellegent design" into schools, that kind of crap.
We are the laughing stock of the western world.
The State Academy for Sciences will have some work to do to explain how $Deity created Homo Montanus as a different race from Homo Californio with its liberal views.
Why should Montana have to sign up for the latest Green-Pinko-Suicide-Pact?
Quick, someone post what exactly the 97% agreed upon. I'll wait
What the GPP said: having a little extra on the side. Moroever, the christian right really don't see fellatio as sexual relations, only deviancy, so he could easily use your side to claim he didn't lie: he didn't have sexual relations.
PS when your orange shitgibbon is in power, you really REALLY don't have any space to complain.
Different AC here.
I have hundreds of thousands of experimental results over the course of my life time that generally confirm the Theory of Gravity.
For example, from the top of a flight of stairs, as I step forward, a force consistent with the Theory of Gravity appears to exert an attraction to a lower elevation. Laymen refer to this as walking downstairs.
There have been a few cases where my elevation did NOT decrease as I went downstairs. Outside observers confirm that this is only when I was in an area referred to as a "up escalator" and was not moving faster than said escalator.
Gravity is a theory. It is easily and obviously falsifiable, more so than most theories, so it is a great example for debunking Internet Pseudo Scientist. Feel free to walk off a very high place if you dispute it.
Because you added a caveat that does not exist. If he'd said that group three said that there was a problem but aliens had taken over the world and would kill all humans, that group would not exist because though there is a group with the first part of the requirement, they need both parts to be what you claimed.
Why don't you care about your lies?
When your bogies go yellow, that is cyanide used to kill off infected cells. Therefore by your stupid claim, it's safe.... Or you're a fucking moron.
Since the woman is required to carry this "baby" as you call it, she is made unfree. Therefore you should be made to carry it if you want it alive. It will still die because you are not biologically equipped, but who the fuck cares? The only reason why this is a "baby" is becuase fucking nutcase religious whackjobs insist life begins at conception (it does not).
Also if life is a constitutional right, you have, by your constitution, a REQUIREMENT to pay for medical care for every citizen and human in the USA.
If you want to claim otherwise, then you're going to be wrong because there are scores of presidents of greenpeace (he NEVER was a president of greenpeace) say the same as the IPCC. Therefore they are right.
The guy is a fucking idiot.
I agree he appears to be an idiot, but we seem to frequenty ascribe to stupidity what is more accurately attributable to malice and deceit. I know people like to come across as "wise" by citing the mantra "Never ascribe to malice what can be explained by stupidity," but that is actually a very dangerous thing to do, because it biases everyone to dismissing as "stupid" what is, ever more commonly these days, a malicious attack on the very foundations of our society (reason based upon factual information, ie. the scientific method), and we do so at our own very great peril.
These people may or may not be stupid. That they are actively malicious cannot reasonably be denied (though I'm sure their apologists will jump in here and do so anyway). If we attribute malice where there is stupidity, well then, we've misjudged someone, which is a bummer for them, but if we dismiss as stupidity what is active malice, then we hamstring our ability to protect ourselves, and perhaps even counter, said malice, and that is a much graver thing.
What a moron. And people elected this twit.
Sorry Montana.
I never said what was allowed or not. That's on you. I said what I don't like. I also said that the job of a scientist isn't to push politics. Do you like scientists that push for more fossil fuels because global warming is a lie and carbon dioxide good? Are they allowed to? Is it good science?
To the extent that science has an impact on public policy, scientists should be involved in politics, or more accurately, policy should be determined by science. Should we tax the shit out of tobacco and otherwise discourage it? Science says yes. Should we stop using CFC's in hairspray cans because they are causing damage to the protective ozone layer? Science said yes, and it worked. Should we ban video games because they corrupt the youth? Science says no, that whole premise is bullshit. Should we stop putting lead in household products so we don't poison the shit out of our children? Yeah, and it turns out that has reduced crime rates dramatically.
I (and most people) are worried about global warming because that's what the science says we need to be worried about. If solid science comes about showing that we've solved the problem, or that we don't need to worry about it because of reason x, y, or z, then I will change my position. We have to make decisions based on the best knowledge available to us at any given time, and the best knowledge available right now says that CO2 emissions are a problem.
Science is, simply put, how we learn things as a species. Arguing that science shouldn't be a part of politics is essentially saying that we should use no facts or knowledge in support of public policies. Is that really what you want?
Should we tax the shit out of tobacco and otherwise discourage it? Science says yes.
Not it doesn't. It says that tobacco is addictive and unhealthy. What we as citizens do with that information is politics. Science cannot answer the questions of politics and for very good reason (it reduces humans and citizens to factors of an experiment). Science can only help inform your decisions it cannot make them.
policy should be determined by science.
This is already the case in most cases. For example, the EPA has to have a scientific basis for any regulation they want (which Obama decided was too much of a burden and ignored). That is not the same as scientists using their position to push politics. For example, the Dickey Amendment. If you as a scientist can't keep your personal politics and position out of your research then you have no business doing said research.
I (and most people) are worried about global warming .. CO2 emissions are a problem.
Great. That doesn't tell you a solution that will solve the problem. Should we tax everyone until there are riots on the streets? Should we nationalize energy and bankrupt the economy like Venezuela? Should we kill off 2/3 of the human population to lower emissions? Should we outlaw all carbon emitting technologies? As far as science is concerned these "solutions" are equivalent because they attempt to get the same goal. An experiment to test on "reducing CO2". Humans are reduced to mere numbers and cogs to be factored and reduced to get an appropriate outcome. Scientists are human and are corruptible just the same as anyone else with power and therefore are not absolved of the reality of political power and decision making without appropriate checks and balances of political power.
Science is, simply put, how we learn things as a species.
Science is incapable of certain things. Like making choices for us. Science is a tool and like all tools are useful for their intended purpose but can be abused and corrupted.
Arguing that science shouldn't be a part of politics is essentially saying that we should use no facts or knowledge in support of public policies. Is that really what you want?
I never said don't use facts or knowledge that is your own straw-man misrepresentation of my position.
Anything "sanctuary" — for people breaking a Federal law — is in itself a Federal crime:
Providing sanctuary to illegal immigrants is a crime. Doubting federally-employed scientists is not.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
So businesses don't sell to people. Just make GDP and pollution for what? Shareholders, oops they're people too.
Apologists like you just never give up. People cause pollution. Full stop. No question.
Your solution to CO2 pollution is to reduce GDP then? That would work, PEOPLE could buy less things and waste less energy etc.
Still people...
What a surprise, the American apologist blames China to deflect attention away from America.
Americans are so much more dirty than Chinese it's not even close.
China could literally burn twice as much coal just to spite you, and their per person CO2 would still be less than yours.
Just put it all in a big pile and set it on fire. Just for fun. They would still be cleaner than you.
You already know this of course. Just as you already know America is far far worse than just about every country in the world when it comes to CO2 pollution.
Coming down by accident? Or only because your were 3 times as polluting as other developed countries, now you are only twice as bad...
Why are you entitled to pollute 10 times as much as developing countries? Just because you developed first?
You entitled assholes need to drop at least half.
It's too long to get into on Slashdot, but pp277 onwards in Wonderful Life are the right starting point. A brief quote:
"We talk about the 'scientific method,' and instruct schoolchildren in this supposedly monolithic and maximally effective path to natural knowledge, as if a single formula could unlock all the multifarious secrets of empirical reality.
"...the 'scientific method' involves a set of concepts and procedures tailored to the image of a man in a white coat twirling dials in a laboratory--experiment, quantification, repetition...These procedures are powerful, but they do not encompass all of nature's variety. How should scientists operate when they must try to explain the results of history, those inordinately complex events that can occur but once in detailed glory? Many large domains of nature--cosmology, geology and evolution among them--must be studied with the tools of history. The appropriate methods focus on narrative, not experiment as usually conceived...
"...The techniques of controlled experiment, and reduction of natural complexity to a minimal set of general causes, presupposes that all times can be treated alike and simulated in a laboratory. Cambrian quartz is like modern quartz--tetrahedra of silica and oxygen bound together at all corners. Determine the properties of modern quartz under controlled conditions in a laboratory, and you can interpret the beach sands of the Cambrian Potsdam Sandstone.
"But supposing you want to know why dinosaurs died, or why mollusks flourished while Wiwaxia perished? The laboratory is not irrelevant, and may yield important insights by analogy...But the restricted techniques of the 'scientific method' cannot get to the heart of this singular event involving creatures long dead on an earth with climates and continental positions markedly different from today."
There's a lot more to this idea and I could have carried the quote on for ages, but what you have above covers at least some of the important concepts.
The fact is, that the MAJORITY of CO2 is actually from GDP
Because on that measure, China is doing far better than America in that regard.
China's CO2 per GDP has been improving much faster and for longer than America's has...
If you truly believed per GDP was a useful measure, you would be praising China for it's constant improvements instead of bashing it constantly for years and years.
PS: logically, you would have to be OK with China tripling or quadrupling its CO2 output, as long as the people become richer like America and the GDP goes up.
(clearly and logically, GDP is a useless goal if you care about the environment)
Certainly no honour or logic in you.
Thanks to boofing and the Devil’s Triangle!
Sounds like a climate-flavored version of a "sanctuary city," albeit sanctuary from federal policy stemming from bogus climate alarmist propaganda will *save* money and lives and foster innovation in the green technology sector, while protecting illegal immigrants from law enforcement *costs* money and lives and diminishes the value of American citizenship.
It's easy to come down when you are as high as America.
For both versions of high.
You dropped but are still much much worse. How can you still not understand this? Intentionally thick? Paid to promote some agenda?
America is allowed to be very polluting because we are rich.
Just look at our GDP.
--
WindBourne
Some of them can be bought and will push whatever agenda you want them to push. Now how do you tell the difference between 'scientist' and scientist? Stop spreading this myth than 'scientists' can't lie - the world is not that simple.
It's too long to get into on Slashdot, but pp277 onwards in Wonderful Life are the right starting point. A brief quote:
It gets "too long" and then you start your extremely long and tortured answer to a simple question.
"We talk about the 'scientific method,' and instruct schoolchildren in this supposedly monolithic and maximally effective path to natural knowledge, as if a single formula could unlock all the multifarious secrets of empirical reality.
Who has ever said this? Scientific method has never been about "maximally effective" or "single formula". That's your incorrect opinion. Specifically the scientific method details the process of how to conduct science with some basic principles like hypotheses must be falsifiable.
"...the 'scientific method' involves a set of concepts and procedures tailored to the image of a man in a white coat twirling dials in a laboratory--experiment, quantification, repetition...
What? This borders on a lack of reality of what you think science is. The scientific method does not involve white coats. In the exact subject area of Paleontology, I would say most of the time scientists are not in white coats. Those are often relegated to fields like chemistry, biology, etc.
These procedures are powerful, but they do not encompass all of nature's variety.
What? No one has ever said that the scientific method encompasses "all of nature's variety." No one. It has nothing to do with that at all. What does that even mean? The procedures are a guidelines of how to do scientific work in the same way that OSHA guidelines exist on how to do work safely. OSHA guidelines does not state that they are the most efficient.
How should scientists operate when they must try to explain the results of history, those inordinately complex events that can occur but once in detailed glory?
What does this even mean? Scientists explain things based on evidence. If there is no evidence then they cannot explain something; however, without evidence then anything about a complex event is pure conjecture. Is this the weak "were you there?" dodge.
Many large domains of nature--cosmology, geology and evolution among them--must be studied with the tools of history. The appropriate methods focus on narrative, not experiment as usually conceived...
What the hell does this mean? All three of these fields conduct live, real time experiments today. They also study the past but also experiment on the future. For example, studying the sun has enhanced the Standard Model specifically when it comes to nuclear fusion. Nuclear fusion helps understand how distant star operate. And so on.
"...The techniques of controlled experiment, and reduction of natural complexity to a minimal set of general causes, presupposes that all times can be treated alike and simulated in a laboratory.
No. No one has ever presupposed this. There are some experiments that can be run in labs in some fields. There are some parts that cannot be. For example, we cannot create a Sun for study. We can create shorts bursts of nuclear fusion for study in a lab but we cannot recreate the Sun. That doesn't mean that what we know about nuclear fusion in the Sun is incorrect.
Cambrian quartz is like modern quartz--tetrahedra of silica and oxygen bound together at all corners. Determine the properties of modern quartz under controlled conditions in a laboratory, and you can interpret the beach sands of the Cambrian Potsdam Sandstone.
Quartz is quartz. The Cambrian Potsdam Sandstone is composed of quartz. What does this have to do with anything?
"But supposing you want to know why dinosaurs died, or why mollusks flourished while Wiwaxia perished? The laboratory is not irrelevant, and may yield important insights by analogy.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Um. Did you miss the point when I said i was quoting Wonderful Life, by Stephen Jay Gould? Or rather, how could you miss this? It was right there in my opening sentence!
You are aware of who Stephen Jay Gould is, right? If you think a Slashdot quote-by-quote rebuttal is an adequate response to one of the most significant paleontologists of the 20th century, and among the top popular science writers on evolution of all time, you probably need to (a) learn a little humility and (b) think again.
Seriously, stop getting (apparently indignant and (apparently) worked up and (apparently) thinking you know better, and go read about who Stephen Jay Gould was, and then go read Wonderful Life, and then let's have a conversation again. It's a better use of your time than dreaming up more reasons why Gould was wrong and you were right.
Um. Did you miss the point when I said i was quoting Wonderful Life, by Stephen Jay Gould? Or rather, how could you miss this? It was right there in my opening sentence!
No. I am calling you out on your inability to answer a simple question and referring to long-winded diatribe that has nothing to do with your assertion. You said that Paleontology doesn't run experiments when that isn't remotely true.
You are aware of who Stephen Jay Gould is, right? If you think a Slashdot quote-by-quote rebuttal is an adequate response to one of the most significant paleontologists of the 20th century, and among the top popular science writers on evolution of all time, you probably need to (a) learn a little humility and (b) think again
Everything you said is basically irrelevant to your point. This has nothing to do with your inability to answer the question which you are trying to dodge: What do you mean when you said Paleontology doesn't conduct experiments when we know that they occur.
Seriously, stop getting (apparently indignant and (apparently) worked up and (apparently) thinking you know better, and go read about who Stephen Jay Gould was, and then go read Wonderful Life, and then let's have a conversation again. It's a better use of your time than dreaming up more reasons why Gould was wrong and you were right.
I'm not indignant. I'm generally confused and baffled as to why you are refusing to answer a simple question and are trying to hide behind a mountain of text written by someone else that has nothing to do with your assertion. I could start inserting parts of Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time but that would be irrelevant.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
But you keep on referring to the words as though they're mine. Why would you do that if you understand they're a quote? It's just ... stupid. And why would you assert that text written by one of the world's pre-eminent paleontologists on the subject of the scope of experimentation in paleontology is irrelevant to a discussion about the scope of experimentation in paleontology? Again, it's just ... stupid.
Your question assumes mal-intent and stupidity on both mine and your part. I'm neither of those things and you are surely better than that. Can't you deal with a mild rhetorical flourish? You have to assume both mal-intent and stupidity to read my assertion that "Repeatability is not achievable for some branches of science where experiments can't be run" means that I don't understand you can carbon-date bones etc. I'm not intending to mislead you and I'm not being stupid. I'm getting at the subtle truth that you cannot experimentally test whether the dinosaurs died out due to a massive meteorite hitting the earth. You can run experiments that help you gather evidence that allow you to make more accurate inferences, but you can't re-run the event or anything approaching a model of it, because it's happened and it was wildly complex. If it makes you feel better to see this as some sort of grand concession, go right ahead doing that and missing the bigger picture.
Anyway, I'm now mightily bored of this. You seem much more interested in "winning" than in a constructive exchange. Is that really how you want to spend your life?
But you keep on referring to the words as though they're mine. Why would you do that if you understand they're a quote? It's just ... stupid.
I never said that. I said : "I'm generally confused and baffled as to why you are refusing to answer a simple question and are trying to hide behind a mountain of text written by someone else"
And why would you assert that text written by one of the world's pre-eminent paleontologists on the subject of the scope of experimentation in paleontology is irrelevant to a discussion about the scope of experimentation in paleontology? Again, it's just ... stupid.
Again I said: " I'm generally confused and baffled as to why you are refusing to answer a simple question and are trying to hide behind a mountain of text written by someone else that has nothing to do with your assertion". It doesn't matter what Stephen Jay Gould said as what you quoted has nothing to do with your assertion. You're both introducing a red herring while appealing to authority. These are both logical fallacies.
Your question assumes mal-intent and stupidity on both mine and your part. I'm neither of those things and you are surely better than that. Can't you deal with a mild rhetorical flourish?
Ah there it is. So now you're saying that it was "rhetorical flourish" when you said: "Repeatability is not achievable for some branches of science where experiments can't be run. Paleontology, for example." Instead of saying that it was a "rhetorical flourish" right away when asked directly and repeatedly what you meant, you launched into a long and failed attempt to dodge the question. How was what you said intended to be rhetorical or a flourish? The statement itself lends itself to no other interpretation. It's not an idiom or metaphor but a statement. I can only conclude that "rhetorical flourish" is just another dodge as your attempts to explain yourself failed.
You have to assume both mal-intent and stupidity to read my assertion that "Repeatability is not achievable for some branches of science where experiments can't be run" means that I don't understand you can carbon-date bones etc.
I asked you repeatedly what you meant and you failed to give this exact answer. Repeatedly. What can someone assume when you don't answer a simple question? Either you were trying to dodge the question or you didn't know what you were talking about and wanted to cover it up. I will have to assume it is the latter because of this part of the statement: "you can carbon-date bones etc.". Paleontology rarely involves carbon-dating bones. Anyone with a bare understanding of the science would know this.
I'm not intending to mislead you and I'm not being stupid. I'm getting at the subtle truth that you cannot experimentally test whether the dinosaurs died out due to a massive meteorite hitting the earth.
And you could have provided this answer this but you didn't. Repeatedly. But let's address this point. Again. We can't know at the present time that Bob the Plesiosaur died instantly or later on that day. But we do know that plesiosaurs disappear from the fossil record after the K-T boundary. And you can experimentally test this whether dinosaurs died due to massive meteor. And the test has been done: Date all the dinosaurs. Date the K-T boundary. Do any dinosaurs survive past the K-T boundary? No. The most likely explanation is the meteorite.
You can run experiments that help you gather evidence that allow you to make more accurate inferences, but you can't re-run the event or anything approaching a model of it, because it's happened and it was wildly complex.
If we follow your logic, many, many sciences cannot function or exist. For example (as I stated earlier), anyone studying the Sun is at the sheer disadvantage that it cannot be recreated. From the s
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
That's a very loud thing. I suppose people who study political sciences are going to write an essay about it. I must admit that this is not easy and if you want a good mark, you should order an essay on EssaysMatch. It will be still better than yours.