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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."
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."
The guy is a fucking idiot.
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.
Riiiiiieeeeeerrrrr! America can have only ONE source of approved information created by divine decree by Federal Bureaucracies. Flamebait FUD article is flamebait.
Consensus is hugely important in science. The idea that "The instant you start rolling out "pretty much all" or "97% of scientists" say, you're INSTANTLY anti-science." would have trouble being less correct. You don't have to personally revalidate the sum of human knowledge to move further afield.
The instant you start rolling out "pretty much all" or "97% of scientists" say, you're INSTANTLY anti-science.
Please explain how lawmakers should use scientific findings, if not going by consensus ?
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!
Science is not just about objective facts. It's about theories that explain these facts. Different scientists can, and have, propose different theories for the same facts.
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.
So, is a photon a wave or a particle?
What science does is attempt to provide a model that can be used to understand how reality operates, but the model is not the thing it models.
Its been very successful at creating those models, and they are very useful, but no one who isnt trying to create a strawman is under any illusion that they are in some sense true. Truth is a mathematical concept not a scientific one.
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 ?
First, it doesn't matter what you call it, if you have too much, it's a problem. You can call it peaches and it won't change its effects.
Second, there is no such thing as blasphemy against chemistry or physics, which is what life is. Blasphemy only has meaning in religion.
Third, to pollute is to render harmful through inclusion, and adding more co2 to the atmosphere renders it harmful on multiple levels, so co2 is actually a pollutant by a reasonable definition. But as per point the first, it really doesn't matter if you call it a pollutant. What matters is that we know co2 to be a greenhouse gas, and we know that GHGs promote global warming. We also know that last time co2 was this high, Earth wouldn't have been a nice place for humans. We also know that this rate of co2 rise is unprecedented. We also know that adding energy to a system produces effects, and that climate is a chaotic system. We know that our species has enjoyed a period of climatological stability, and that our actions are perturbing that stability.
Tldr you're arguing about whether we're about to be eaten by alligators or crocodiles, and it's a meaningless argument.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
science isn’t about consensus, it’s about truth
If there’s no consensus then what happens is you have your version of the truth and someone else has their version. For example Newton and Einstein were both right about gravity. Einstein’s version accommodates relativity whereas Newton does not.
Also your assertion is somehow 97% of the people who know, study, and understand a subject will gladly accept a lie. Have you met scientists? These are some of the most anal-retentitive people in the world. They will argue endlessly about whether a hyphen sound belong in the name of a newly discovered thing. Yet according to you, they’ll gladly swallow a lie that everyone is propagating.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Really? Is Pluto a planet? How do we know the Higgs boson exists if we can’t all build CERN sized reactors? How are scienitific papers checked? Consensus. Science isn’t as subjective the same way popular opinion is subjective but there is consensus.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
No, they don't. They propose different hypotheses. The set of validated (by measurement, observation, proof, experiment, reasoning picked apart) hypotheses is what constitutes a theory.
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.
Hmmm.
Lets see. Great 'Murica has kept coming down in CO2, until this year, but should continue down in spite of Trump.
OTOH, CHina continues to ADD massive amounts of new coal plants, while America continues to replace ours with AE and Nat Gas.
So, nope.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
"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.
"Ignoring federal weapons regulations? Nope Ignoring federal emissions regulations? Nope Ignoring federal drug regulations? Fine"
The federal standard is that citizens have the right to keep and bear arms, specifically military weaponry. California ignores that. But there is also the standard that most of the country fears California already (they're harboring immigrants! They're coming for my gas guzzler! They're coming for my guns!) So nobody wants to force the issue, because what's scarier than Californians with pulpits and pens? Californians with pulpits, pens, and guns!
The federal standard for emissions regulations is a bit of a mixed bag. The EPA was created by Nixon, who may have had his head up his ass, but who seemed to care about the future of the nation. Today, Cheeto Mussolini is doing his best to destroy it, because he doesn't. California instituted stricter emissions regulations than the feds because we needed them. Asthma rates were rising fast, children in la county had bleeding lesions on their lungs, and so on. There are ways the CARB could be less abusive, but ironically they would also have to be MORE strict in other ways, limiting still further what it's legal to sell as opposed to what's legal to do in the aftermarket. Industry is capable of profiting under such rules; for example, all automakers selling vehicles in America were capable of EXCEEDING the CAFE targets, not just meeting them. But his orangeness decided they were too strict anyway. Meanwhile, all of those companies have to produce less-polluting vehicles for the rest of the world anyway, so they are saving zero dollars on R&D.
Finally, the federal standard for drug criminalization is supposed to be based on both hazard and benefit. By their own rules, for example, cannabis should be less heavily regulated than cough syrup, or indeed, alcohol.
So, tell us again all about who is ignoring what, because it seems like all the ignorance not displayed in your argument is being promoted by the federal government.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
There are plenty of theories that are not validated, like string theory.
Observation vs Concept http://bit.ly/1lM3PFS
"Tempers are wearing thin. Let's just hope some robot doesn't kill everybody." --Bender
"Even w/rising levels, isn't CO2 still only on the order of 0.05% of all atmospheric gases by volume?"
Yes, but so what? If you get near a point, make it.
"Observation vs Concept"
Not watching a video, get real. If you can't make your point in a few sentences, you don't know what you're talking about. We can observe the properties of co2, both atmospherically and in the lab, and conclude that a notable percentage increase will have a significant effect. Get the concept yet?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Nobody, yet.
The point is that the lunatics are running the asylum.
No sig today...
Great 'Murica has kept coming down in CO2
Mostly because people stumbled on shale gas, which replaced a bunch of coal. There's no real policy behind it, and it can easily reverse again when the gas starts running out.
Objective facts are kind of like platonic ideals... you can't touch them, really. What you have is data, that was gathered by flawed human beings with varying degrees of training, equipment, and methodology. From this you arrive at a consensus about what the data means, to various degrees of certainty. Then a politician can get drunk one night while surfing Google or mingling with donors and write a law that will either refer to or contradict the consensus and not give it another thought until someone tells him it either polled well or poorly.
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.
isn't CO2 still only on the order of 0.05% of all atmospheric gases by volume?
The only way for Earth to lose heat is to radiate it into space as infrared waves. The CO2 captures part of that energy and sends it back down. The oxygen, nitrogen and argon, which make up nearly all of the atmosphere have no effect on infrared or visible waves.
Looking at the CO2 as a percentage of the total atmosphere makes no sense. You have to look at the absolute numbers. A nice way to do that is to imagine the different gases in the atmosphere are separated into pure layers. If you do that, we would get a layer of about 4 feet of pure CO2. That's the layer that blocks the IR. Now, before the industrial age, that layer would have been about 3 feet.
Yeah, we do this a lot. Specially if there is a latin root for the word.
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.
"Tempers are wearing thin. Let's just hope some robot doesn't kill everybody." --Bender
The argument will be that greenhouse gas regulations (like many air pollution regulations) fall under the Interstate Commerce Clause.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
With the emphasis on "a". Repeatability is not achievable for some branches of science where experiments can't be run. Paleontology, for example.
Please illustrate with examples from your own body of scientific work.
sudo ergo sum
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
Not watching a video, get real. If you can't make your point in a few sentences, you don't know what you're talking about. We can observe the properties of co2, both atmospherically and in the lab, and conclude that a notable percentage increase will have a significant effect. Get the concept yet?
Yeah, I wasn't expecting you to... you seem to already be a know-it-all... other people may be interested though... "Ecology... Nature is only model we have that has survived climate change with sheer, total, utter neglect..."
"Tempers are wearing thin. Let's just hope some robot doesn't kill everybody." --Bender
3 or 4 ft thick? At what altitude? Do you know how to calculate the volume of a sphere?
3 or 4 ft thick at standard pressure. Yes.
The concept postulating a slow-down of heat loss due to IR absorption by trace gases is totally UNPHYSICAL
I'm afraid we're going to need more than a tweet.
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
It's by design; the not-so-subtle horseshit they're constantly spewing makes it quite clear that they're under establishment control.
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!!!
3 or 4 ft thick at standard pressure. Yes.
You may want to study up on how to calculate the volume of a sphere first...
I'm afraid we're going to need more than a tweet.
Point of the tweet is climate change may be happening, and it may have nothing to do with CO2. And, the govt isn't particularly good at classifying things, like pollutants & drugs. Does the govt consider glyphosate a pollutant?
"Tempers are wearing thin. Let's just hope some robot doesn't kill everybody." --Bender
Mostly because people stumbled on shale gas, which replaced a bunch of coal. There's no real policy behind it, and it can easily reverse again when the gas starts running out.
Stumbled on it by fracking, which means pumping refinery wastes into the ground and pounding on them in order to hydraulically hammer the rock until it fractures, which could never EVER have any negative repercussions, right? The fossil fuel industry is fractally evil.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The CO2 captures part of that energy and sends it back down.
And, just how does the CO2 know which way to send it?
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
You may want to study up on how to calculate the volume of a sphere first...
Why don't you just get to the point instead ?
By the way, just did the calculation again, and it's not feet, it's meters. About 3.5 meters pre-industrial, and about 5 meters right now. Calculation is pretty simple, and does not involve volumes of spheres, just the column of air above a certain surface area, which can be assumed flat for this purpose. The idea is not to get an exact value, just an intuitive sense of proportion.
And, just how does the CO2 know which way to send it?
It sends the radiation in all directions. But the part that goes back down is what's contributing to greenhouse effect.
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.
They're theories because they can be mathematically proven to be consistent with our cosmological models.
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!
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.
The argument will be that greenhouse gas regulations (like many air pollution regulations) fall under the Interstate Commerce Clause.
That's probably correct, although one could also cite promotion of the general welfare.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
And that criticism has been brought up by physicists. You probably aren't going to get this based off of your post, but for others who are interested, in physics, many of the theories proposed are given weight first by the mathematical symmetries that they reveal, hinting they might be based in reality. That is the current state of string theory. The math looks very compelling. What makes it a theory is not that it hasn't been validated, but that it is TESTABLE. If a test can not be devised, then it is not a theory. In the case of string theory, we think we can test it, if only colliders with high enough energy existed (google string phenomenology).
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.
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
In science, that's called a theory until proven. AGW is unproven.
There’s multiple things wrong with your statement. An idea is a hypothesis until consensus deems it to be correct. A theory is a set of accepted (by consensus) hypothesis. There also isn’t really “proven” as science isn’t math and there are no “proofs”. Evidence is found for or against hypotheses.
The disagreement over AGW is more fundamental. While pro-AGW scientists may argue about whether a hyphen should be used, anti-AGW scientists argue a hyphen doesn't exist in the alphabet or that pro-AGW scientists fail to recognize extra characters in the alphabet that should be used or considered (metaphorically).
As for pro-AGW vs anti-AGW, the anti-AGW is a very, very tiny minority. The vast majority of those who know and understand the science are pro. They aren’t arguing over a hyphen. They aren’t arguing whether it is true. They’ve moved on as arguing whether it is true is like arguing whether gravity exists.
Not to mention, it's career suicide for a scientist to come out against AGW in any way at this point. Wouldn't want to be a homeless denier, would they?
Do you know what scientists call other scientists that come up with ground-breaking science that changes the fundamentals of their field? Visionaries and most of the time, Nobel prize winners. The difference between them and deniers is that visionaries have evidence.
Unless you can verify the work of pro-AGW scientists, you could be swallowing a giant lie as well. The burden is on those claiming the sky is falling, not those who present evidence to the contrary.
Me personally or scientists? You understand that’s why scientists publish right? Here’s a fatal flaw to this logic. Just because you can’t understand the science or how to validate it, doesn’t mean it wasn’t validated by people who can understand.
It would go a long way if the pro-AGW crowd divorced the movement from politics and found a way to explain AGW in a way that is verifiable by your lay man. It would also help if the pro-AGW scientists could make some short-term predictions that accurately come true. The track record of predictions to this point isn't very good. The methodology for collecting and manipulating data (especially temperature data) is also a big problem for anti-AGW folks and needs to be standardized in an unbiased way that removes the questions and uncertainty about the data.
You do understand that it isn’t in the realm of science to change the behavior of people and society right? As for the secon part of your post, have you looked at the data because it doesn’t seem that you have.
Otherwise, expect those with a critical eye toward science and politics to dismiss AGW as yet another issue created by politicians for their own gain. Like any political issue, it will have its loyal followers and those who disagree.
Um didn’t you just post that the vast majority of scientists are pro-AGW. That alone makes this sentence nonsense.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
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!
You may want to study up on how to calculate the volume of a sphere first...
Why don't you just get to the point instead ?
By the way, just did the calculation again, and it's not feet, it's meters. About 3.5 meters pre-industrial, and about 5 meters right now. Calculation is pretty simple, and does not involve volumes of spheres, just the column of air above a certain surface area, which can be assumed flat for this purpose. The idea is not to get an exact value, just an intuitive sense of proportion.
Except gases take up volume (3 dimensions), not a plane (2 dimensions) or a line (1 dimension). So saying "3 or 4m thick" without also the 3rd dimension of altitude makes no sense regarding gases. Also, separating gases into layers also makes no sense since they mix within a given volume.
"Tempers are wearing thin. Let's just hope some robot doesn't kill everybody." --Bender
Any scientist who proposes a hypothesis that goes against the prevailing ides without evidence is ignored. If they are loud and insistent but still have no evidence, then they are shunned.
What happens to those scientists that have evidence for ground breaking ideas that go against established scientific principles? Accolades, reknown, and sometimes a Nobel prize. See Raymond Davis Jr who devised a way to measure solar neutrinos that were created by the Sun’s nuclear fusion. His results showed that there something fundamental wrong with the Standard Model when it came to neutrinos.
Was he shunned? Was he obstracized? No. Other scientists were skeptical as they should be until his results were verified by Mataoshi Koshiba. For their work, they got 1/2 of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
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".
While I think this is the WRONG battle to do this over....I do admire anyone trying to fight to wrench back states rights, and push back on Federal overreach.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
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
cthon stated:
No, they don't. They propose different hypotheses. The set of validated (by measurement, observation, proof, experiment, reasoning picked apart) hypotheses is what constitutes a theory.
You're so close to being right.
The distinction between hypothesis and theory in science is not a clear, bright line - and, for the most part, scientific theories are always subject to revision in light of new evidence.
That's because the scientific method is not about proving anything other than that a given hypothesis cannot be true, because experimental evidence proves it incorrect. It doesn't matter how many experiments have lent support to a given hypothesis in the past - all it takes is a single one that conclusively demonstrates that it's wrong to invalidate it. It then is discarded in favor of the next-best alternative (regardless of whether that alternative is an older hypothesis that has not yet been proven wrong, a revised version of the same hypothesis, or is a brand-new, minty-fresh one that is consistent with all the evidence to date).
The graduation of a hypothesis to the status of scientific theory is a gradual process, and one that can happen only by (wait for it!) consensus. The greater the number and variety of different experiments that fail to disprove it, the more the scientific community comes to agree that a hypothesis should be considered as reliable enough for practical purposes to deserve to be treated as if it were correct.
The thing is, though, that status is never set in stone. Take Newtonian physics, for example. For three centuries, Newton's theories withstood experimental efforts to disprove them so reliably that they came to be regarded as actual laws. (And, I hasten to add, they're still reliable enough to be treated that way by engineers for quotidian, practical purposes.) But then Einstein proposed his General Theory of Relativity, and Newtonian physics went out the window - at least at astronomical scales. It was an actual revolution in scientific understanding of how physics works in our universe, and general relativity achieved the status of theory in what was pretty much record time, because every experiment that attempted to disprove it at the macro level failed miserably.
But it broke down at the nano scale. There, accumulated observational data poked progressively bigger holes in Einstein's theory, until it became undeniable that Something Else was going on.
Enter quantum mechanics.
Einstein hated it - and it wasn't because it contradicted his own theory. It was because the notion of what he called "spooky action at a distance" offended his sense of order. Uncertainty, superposition of states, entanglement (the "spooky action" to which Einstein's sarcastic comment referred), and the fundamental randomness of the nature of the universe at the smallest scale bothered him so deeply that he famously thundered, "God does not play dice with the universe."
But he was wrong about that. At the quantum scale, as an ever-increasing body of experimental evidence has established, randomness and uncertainty are inescapable - to the point where, at the Planck scale, the current model of quantum theory holds that "virtual particles" actually blink into and out of existence in such profusion that the fabric of reality itself consists of a so-called "quantum foam." (That bit has not yet been tested by experiment, mostly because we simply don't yet have the tools to conduct direct observation of such incredibly tiny phenomena. In fact, given the ever-increasing effects of quantum uncertainty as we approach the Planck scale, it may be physically impossible for us ever to directly observe and measure those virtual particles. The best evidence of their existence in the real world may forever remain indirect - which doesn't mean the model is wrong, or that won't earn the status of theory, however.)
There's an ever-growing mountain of evidence that both general relativity and quantum mechanics accurately model
Check out my novel.
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.
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.
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.
You are talking about the California law that forbids private citizens and companies from letting Feds onto their land for immigration enforcement.
Pretty much everyone agrees that is unconstitutional, but it is still in courts.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
No, they don't. They propose different hypotheses. The set of validated (by measurement, observation, proof, experiment, reasoning picked apart) hypotheses is what constitutes a theory.
No theory is ever completely proven. Not only is it always possible to get new observations that will contradict a given theory, it's also possible to posit a different theory that predicts contradictory observations which have not yet been made. This means that consensus is always what defines our current notion of scientific "truth" (which is never absolute, so "truth" is really not a good word). For any given broadly-accepted theory there are often individual scientists who take issue with some element of the theory, or even that propose something quite different. That's not just okay, it's a fundamental element of scientific progress -- even though those who fight the consensus are usually wrong.
No one individual has the ability to independently research and verify all of scientific knowledge, so the rational choice is to accept the consensus unless you have invested in becoming sufficiently expert in a field to be able to intelligently challenge that consensus. That doesn't mean you have to challenge the consensus as a whole, either. If you can identify one part of the consensus that isn't correct and you can provide compelling evidence to support your point, that's completely valid, and a valuable contribution which can update and correct the consensus. But note that identifying one error rarely invalidates the entirety of the consensus view; more often it just points out that an adjustment is needed.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Evolution is an empirical fact. Evolution by natural selection is a scientific theory. Intelligent design is nothing but very thinly disguised religious dogma. You are either very ignorant or else a troll.
50-60 million civilians died in WW2 with many of them Germans even after conflict was supposed to be over. Communism in the 20th century, 61 million in the Soviet Union, 78 million in China, and roughly 200 million worldwide.
Plants need it. People exhale it. I would say its pretty damn needed to exist. Why would you call it a polluntant?
The same can be said about shit. Plants need it and we excrete it, so why would you call shit a pollutant?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Totally agree about the shale gas and basically, the economics. However, unless those coal plants were shut down in the last year or so OR were built in the last 5 years, they already are far far too expensive to re-start. And NO COMPANY in America is going to build another coal plant. They all know that they will be hit later on shutting it down or paying massively to clean up.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
nope. Not true.
In fact, we would have a lot more hydro, nuclear, geothermal, wind and nat gas, if it was not for the build out of coal.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
As far as gun regs, Congress decided you couldn't buy a modern infantry rifle over thirty years ago. That was the end of the Second.
I'm not saying that banning the sale of post-1986 automatic weapons was inherently bad in itself, but I'm rather fond of Constitutional protections even if I don't personally agree with them.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Also your assertion is somehow 97% of the people who know, study, and understand a subject will gladly accept a lie.
Welllllll, now that you mention it...
The obvious one about the Royal Astronomical Society coming to the conclusion that ROCKS DO NOT FALL FROM THE SKY and therefore, anyone who reports finding a meteorite is lying.
But, let's work with something a bit less obvious: Dark Matter. 97% of scientists appear to believe in this claptrap. I am sorry, but what is really going on here is that scientists have no fucking clue what gravity is and can only work with the obvious result of gravity, which is acceleration. Acceleration is NOT gravity. Attraction is NOT gravity. Those are the results of gravity, not gravity itself. Numerous scientists have said that spacetime is "bending" but nobody wants to acknowledge what that means (understandable, nobody likes thinking that reality might be WAY different than what they believe).
What does "bent space" look like? Well, it looks like what current galactic rotation curves show... but it looks incomprehensible to us because a meter is a meter and is always the same regardless of the environment. There are not even words to describe "bent space" because it is so alien to us... but the smartest scientists keep talking about "bent space" without fully understanding/thinking it through.
So yeah, Dark Matter contradicts your point. What is worse is that many younger physicists think that Dark Matter isn't just a placeholder for things we don't know, they think it is an actual thing. :)
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
When done right, fracking is done below a layer of impermeable rock, which means that refinery waste or whatever stays down there and isn't going to pollute anything we rely on. The process does appear to cause earthquakes, and it isn't clear how good that is. I can construct arguments that it's a good thin and that it's a bad thing, and we really don't know enough to decide between them.
Fracking done wrong is bad, but that's true of a lot of things.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The obvious one about the Royal Astronomical Society coming to the conclusion that ROCKS DO NOT FALL FROM THE SKY and therefore, anyone who reports finding a meteorite is lying.
Citation Needed
So yeah, Dark Matter contradicts your point. What is worse is that many younger physicists think that Dark Matter isn't just a placeholder for things we don't know, they think it is an actual thing. :)
How does it contradict my point? My reading of your comments is that you don’t understand what scientists are talking about when it comes to Dark Matter. And scientists are not fully sure of what Dark Matter is, but they are unequivocally stating that they don’t know. When it comes to climate change, they are sure which is a different scenario.
I don’t see Dark Matter as any different than black hole physics in this regard. General relativity predicts the existence and creation of black holes. For decades now, there is no decent explanation or model of what happens inside black hole. There are competing ideas like quantum gravity but no one has been able to bring forth a verifiable model yet. That doesn’t mean General Relativity is wrong.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Nazis were generally right wing in outlook. Learn history from somewhere other than Infowars. Don't forget the newpaper editorial last week from Alabama suggesting that the KKK go and lynch Democrats in DC. Of course, if right wingers suggest this then it's just a joke, but if left wingers suggest it they must be serious about it.
GOP on Clinton: Total lack of moral character, unsuitable to be president.
GOP on Trump: Best guy ever, darling of the evangelicals.
So, what would you consider to be compelling evidence for AGW? In other words, if you are open minded, what kind of evidence would it take to change your mind?
A fair retort is to ask what I would need to hear to stop believing in AGW. As far as I'm concerned, there are two parts to this question - the warming and the human cause. The evidence of warming is widespread, from glacier patterns to ice coverage dates to rainfall pattern changes to animal and biosphere changes. I find it hard to imagine that this wide-ranging set of observations that all point to the same thing are all wrong, but go ahead and dispute all of them.
The other component of my AGW support is that the above warming is human caused. For this, we point to CO2 concentrations, basic physics, and a ruling out of all other causes. If you can show another cause for the above observations, then we can dismiss AGW.
The set of validated (by measurement, observation, proof, experiment, reasoning picked apart) hypotheses is what constitutes a theory.
This is not true. There is very little about the theory of relativity that was validated in any way until long after it had been proposed. Sure, it was a nice set of math and solved a few tricky issues elegantly, but there are plenty of wrong theories that meet that criteria.
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.
The oxygen, nitrogen and argon, which make up nearly all of the atmosphere have no effect on infrared or visible waves.
Here on Earth they do. Is the sky not blue on your planet?
There are plenty of theories that are not validated, like string theory.
String THEORY!!??!
You must be joking. String is not theoretical, it's real. I have a ball of it right here.
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.
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.
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.
The obvious one about the Royal Astronomical Society coming to the conclusion that ROCKS DO NOT FALL FROM THE SKY and therefore, anyone who reports finding a meteorite is lying.
Citation Needed
My google fu is a bit weak right now, but apparently, I was wrong about which group stated it. It was the French Academy of Sciences, not the Royal Astronomical Society. Same idea.
https://www.newscientist.com/a...
How does it contradict my point? ... And scientists are not fully sure of what Dark Matter is, but they are unequivocally stating that they donâ(TM)t know.
Many scientists agree that Dark Matter exists. Dark Matter is merely the result of torturing a misunderstanding beyond reason. It does not actually exist in any way, shape, or form.
There are competing ideas like quantum gravity but no one has been able to bring forth a verifiable model yet. That doesnâ(TM)t mean General Relativity is wrong.
There are very few things that I believe, but I take it as a matter of faith that General Relativity is as close to real Truth as humans have found. Dark Matter is not predicted by General Relativity.
Short breakdown:
Do a search with the term "gravity bends spacetime". See the results?
Now, what if gravity doesn't bend spacetime, rather gravity is a consequence of the shape of spacetime?
All the same equations describe the situation, but now, gravity is no longer a fundamental force. This can be described quite nicely in a primitive two dimensional manner: Any change in the rate of time flow will result in an acceleration towards the lower change in rate. (time flows faster for an object the further it is from another mass)
It is actually much more subtle than that, but General Relativity continues working just fine. Gravity is just an illusion... but I would not recommend stepping off of a cliff. Your body will still be accelerated as would be expected if gravity were not an illusion.
Dark Matter and Gravity are illusions based on our limited understanding of the actual shape and nature of spacetime.
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
When you figure out how to make all pollutants stay within the boundaries of a state, you can argue that they shouldn't be considered interstate commerce. Carbon dioxide spreads out globally.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Wrong. The theory is only deemed "correct" if the results of experimentation align with the original hypothesis, not because a bunch of like-minded scientists agree with each other. That's called groupthink.
And who agrees that the results of the experiments align with the original hypothesis? Musicians, plumbers, hair dressers? Scientists specifically those that understand the science. You've just destroyed your own point.
So-called "visionaries" have political backing. Evidence gets ignored in favor of politics all the time on any number of topics, let alone science
Citation Needed
Darwin was a visionary, but wasn't widely recognized as such for many years.
No. When Darwin proposed evolution by natural selection he had some evidence. It wasn't overwhelming. It would decades of more evidence before his ideas on evolution were accepted as the prevailing theory. In the case of AGW it's been 50 years of research covering hundreds of thousands of years of evidence.
I'm talking about you personally. Unless you are a climate scientist with the necessary math background, you don't really know if AGW is true or false. Even then, can you really rely on the underlying data you've been given to work with? Instead, you rely on who you consider authorities on the matter to inform your opinion.
Why do I have to prove or disprove your assertions? Why don't you present evidence that the scientists are wrong? I suspect it's that you can't. Then what happens is you require ever more complex and extraordinary amounts of evidence because you "don't believe."
Just "trust me" from politicians and their scientists they fund through government isn't going to cut it with something that requires a "solution" as invasive and expensive as has been proposed. I don't know about you, but I don't just believe what I'm told just because the "authorities" told me. Especially something wrapped so tightly with politics. It stinks and many of us aren't buying it.
That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying just because you don't understand doesn't mean that no one understands. There are literally hundreds of scientists that understand this specific subject. You are not among them yet you feel your lack of understanding should supersede everyone else. It's the equivalent of me saying that I don't understand nuclear fusion therefore it can't possible exist.
Trump's the "authority" now. Do you believe everything he says?
In what world has the President' of the United States ever been an authority in the matters of science?
Of course. However, don't expect skeptics to be swayed through politics when pro-AGW people claim science proves AGW exists. Scientists need to make their case, if the sky is truly falling. Many of us just don't see it. Battering skeptics as deniers isn't going to do it. You don't need to be a politician or a scientist to understand that, yet few on the left do.
Um. They claim their results because they've published their results. There are hundreds of papers that you can read. You can replicate the experiments. You can look at the data. Yet your whole argument boils down to "I don't believe" even though it appears you haven't read any of them.
We were supposed to be headed toward an ice age according to "scientists" in the 70s, and according to Al Gore, New York should be underwater now. There are many more, but these are some of the more popular high-profile false predictions by so-called scientists and leaders.
Who made theses predictions? Please cite your work. I find that most of the time, claims are made by journalists not scientists themselves.
It wasn't that long ago that scientists assured us there was no way we could have evolved from apes.
By "wasn't that long ago" you mean more tha
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
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.
My google fu is a bit weak right now, but apparently, I was wrong about which group stated it. It was the French Academy of Sciences, not the Royal Astronomical Society. Same idea. https://www.newscientist.com/a... [newscientist.com]
So let me get this straight: You're citing the fact that hundreds of years ago (1794), when man didn't know where meteorites because there was no decent evidence for it is exactly why you should dismiss climate change even though there is evidence for it.
Many scientists agree that Dark Matter exists. Dark Matter is merely the result of torturing a misunderstanding beyond reason. It does not actually exist in any way, shape, or form.
Incorrect. Many scientists agree that something exists which we can't fully explain. For now they are calling it Dark Matter. For now they do not have a complete knowledge on its properties in the same way that scientists didn't know all the properties of all the sub-atomic particles that exist; that doesn't mean that sub-atomic particles never existed.
There are very few things that I believe, but I take it as a matter of faith that General Relativity is as close to real Truth as humans have found. Dark Matter is not predicted by General Relativity.
No and there are many things that General Relativity cannot explain. What happens inside a black hole for example. General Relativity is also completely inadequate when it comes to particle physics. Do you dismiss both because General Relativity cannot explain them.
Now, what if gravity doesn't bend spacetime, rather gravity is a consequence of the shape of spacetime?
No, mass bends space-time. Gravity is the force we describe that process.
All the same equations describe the situation, but now, gravity is no longer a fundamental force. This can be described quite nicely in a primitive two dimensional manner: Any change in the rate of time flow will result in an acceleration towards the lower change in rate.
In what way does the many, many tensor equations of General Relativity not have gravity as a fundamental force?
It is actually much more subtle than that, but General Relativity continues working just fine. Gravity is just an illusion... but I would not recommend stepping off of a cliff. Your body will still be accelerated as would be expected if gravity were not an illusion.
Again, General Relativity does not explain what happens inside a black hole. Science has long known that.
Dark Matter and Gravity are illusions based on our limited understanding of the actual shape and nature of spacetime.
Again, how does that contradict my point? Dark Matter information is acknowledged to be something we don't know. Climate change is the opposite in that there is lots of evidence from many scientists affirming that it is 1) happening and 2) caused by man.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
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.
Ah yes, "they can be bought" fallacy. Who are these scientists? Are they all American? No. Do they all spend US dollars? No. So to counter the fact that scientists from many different countries and different economies generally agree that climate change is happening, you are insinuating a massive worldwide conspiracy where they were all "bought" despite the fact that these scientists represent opposing countries and cultures. They also represent different fields of study from biology to geology. Also despite the fact that you can access the research yourself and find mistakes, they've all agreed not to tattle on each other. How silly does your conspiracy seem?
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.
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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
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1) It took $13.25B to find the Higgs Boson not including the cost to build CERN.
2) My inability to smash particles to independently find the Higgs boson means I have to trust the consensus of scientists that it was found.
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