The bottom line is that very few scientists have published actual research with "In conclusion, my research shows that global warming (which I haven't formally defined) is real, is caused by humans, and will doom the planet.".
Yet we're to believe that there is a "scientific consensus" supporting that very statement.
That isn't how science works.
"Consensus" doesn't mean the debate is over. However, here are some of the most prestigious scientific institutions that have endorsed AGW:
National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration
National Academy of Sciences
American Geophysical Union
American Institute of Physics
National Center for Atmospheric Research
NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies
American Meteorological Society
National Research Council
American Physical Society
US Geological Survey
Academia Brasileira de Ciencias,Brazil
Academie des Sciences, France
Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Italy
Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia
Royal Society of Canada, Canada
Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina,Ã Germany
Indian National Science Academy
Indonesian Academy of Sciences
Royal Irish Academy
Academy of Sciences Malaysia
Academy Council of the Royal Society of New Zealand
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Royal Society (UK)
etc...
In particular, NASA, which has the largest concentration of climate scientists, endorses AGW. Thousands of scientists (i.e. the majority of them) agreeing on something means consensus to me.
As for "formally defining GW", I'm sure you can do that by yourself by googling a bit.
Common typo, what they meant to type was "popular opinion over climate change".
No, they mean the scientific consensus.
The "popular opinion" is quite different. Since it is spread by the mass media, it contains de facto exaggerations, and hence has not much to do with the science.
A judge might not be the best person to rule on scientific evidence. Specially when the science is complex. The consensus should do. Some orgs endorsing AGW:
Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina,ï Germany
Indian National Science Academy
Indonesian Academy of Sciences
Royal Irish Academy
Academy of Sciences Malaysia
Academy Council of the Royal Society of New Zealand
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Royal Society (UK)
etc...
On a side note, regarding the AGW debate, a decent attempt at objectivity here, with a few interesting links in the info section:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVi0QSDcFQQ
In the real world there are deadlines, and it's entirely the developer's responsibility to be able to meet those deadlines without using such "dirty coding tricks". Good developers should have tested their code so as to not have serious problems to fix at the last minute, and designed it so as to be able to extend it easily.
Yes, because deadlines are always reasonable and never pushed up. And change orders are a myth.
Nope. Deadlines are often unreasonable. Welcome to the real world. But as a good software developer, you should be able to cope with that too, and without last-minute hide-the-problem hacks.
In the real world there are deadlines, and it's entirely the developer's responsibility to be able to meet those deadlines without using such "dirty coding tricks". Good developers should have tested their code so as to not have serious problems to fix at the last minute, and designed it so as to be able to extend it easily.
And putting such "if" statements is not solving the problem - not even temporarily - but hiding the bug.
Right, nobody said it was easy. That's probably why software development is not for everybody.
Open-source software is great, but doesn't really matter when all politicians are corrupt and most of the country have other priorities than voting, like getting to feed their families and avoid being killed by one side or the other.
"This undermines the credibility of what has been considered the gold standard of proof in criminal cases. "
It doesn't. The credibility still lies with the lab scientists themselves handling the DNA samples, as the infamous OJ Simpson case showed.
"modern-day environmentalism serves as a belief system "
Whether people construct belief systems around facts doesn't invalidate the facts.
"Obviously we haven't destroyed our habitat in any significant way, since there are more of us around than ever."
We haven't destroyed it yet, but we are well on our way.
"And why would causing the mass extinction of other species make us less than ideal as an advanced life form anyway?"
Because the extinction of other species is not needed for our own survival? Because we are supposed to be organisms more evolved than mere viruses propagating themselves and destroying one host cell after another?
"The attitude that we have some 'higher purpose' or that everything else is somehow more sacred than us is a strange to me."
It shouldn't be.
Advanced life forms like humans should look for higher purpose than just mere existence. Even if that means inventing all kinds of meaningless spiritual constructs. Otherwise they wouldn't be advanced in the first place.
Why make artificial bones, when there are tons of this stuff readily available but left unused in those wasted spaces we superstitious beings call cemeteries?
Recycle, goddammit.
There are no such things than bad evolutionary designs. Evolutionary traits of organisms that have managed to survive are by definition all successes.
It is about survival & reproduction, not perfection.
"that the Sun may not be the ideal kind of star to nurture life, and that the Earth may not be the ideal size."
Homo sapiens may not be the ideal kind of advanced life form either. Otherwise it wouldn't destroy its own habitat on a global scale, nor cause avoidable mass extinction of other species. The good news? We don't really need to start worrying about the sun quitting on us. We'll be long gone before that, and I don't mean on another planet. I mean gone in a dinosaurial kind of way...
Sorry, but I'll have to agree with sabiland here. You'll need much more than some 10-years accelerated evolution from rat brains & increase in computing capacity to even come close to a human brain.
As for leading to disaster, we won't need to recreate the human brain for that, the existing ones are more than enough.
"And who is providing the Iranian government with the technical know-how to implement these censoring measures?"
?
And why would you think Iran needs any non-Iranian consultancy or gov to implement those technologies? Do you really believe that Iranians don't have any know-how of their own?
If all these fading democracies have found to fight racism, is to throw people in jail for their opinions, I'd say there is little possibility of that being effective.
If anything, thought-crime turns those people into Free Speech martyrs. Not really a good idea.
If a shrink diagnoses you with Embittement Disorder, punch him in the nose and refuse to pay his consultation bill. There's the chance that you'll be cured instantly, by Bitterness Transfer.
Where do you get your information about "Muslim extermination programs"? The only extermination policy I know of occurred in so-called Christian Europe.
There are 25,000 Jews living in Iran, they are not "exterminated", they are not even discriminated against (apart from the fact that they cannot get into the Army) , they are represented in Parliament, and they have resisted Israel's repeated calls & economic incentives to emigrate to the Jewish state.
So please cut the Islamophobic rant & (Hate) propaganda for simpletons. It might work on the FOX channel "fair & balanced" News, just not around here.
Yet another symptoms of our Fear Culture. Different groups of people each competing for who is going to scare us the most. This might be the first time in the history of humanity that people are scared of almost... everything.
Beware the soda drink epidemic that is paralyzing our muscles while the swine-flu pandemic threat is at level-5, terrorists are playing in your backyard, child abductors and serial killers are lurking right outside your home , the Iranian nuclear threat is coming to a theater near you, and global warming is killing the planet.
Let us know if we left out anything, we will be more than happy to give you a reason to fear those too.
"Is a masters in computer engineering better than two years of experience at a company?"
In my experience, employers prefer years of actual experience.
Having a masters degree says nothing about how well you can withstand the pressure of the real world, and how well you can work with others, two things that most IT companies value highly.
'I didn't expect it to go that far. I expected it to be in blogs and sites, but on mainstream quality papers? I was very surprised.'
Why surprised? There are no mainstream "quality" paper, nor mainstream real journalism for quite some time now... at least since all mainstream media has come under the control of a handful of corporations not really bothered by information inaccuracy.
Slashdot Mirror
The bottom line is that very few scientists have published actual research with "In conclusion, my research shows that global warming (which I haven't formally defined) is real, is caused by humans, and will doom the planet.".
Yet we're to believe that there is a "scientific consensus" supporting that very statement.
That isn't how science works.
"Consensus" doesn't mean the debate is over. However, here are some of the most prestigious scientific institutions that have endorsed AGW:
In particular, NASA, which has the largest concentration of climate scientists, endorses AGW. Thousands of scientists (i.e. the majority of them) agreeing on something means consensus to me.
As for "formally defining GW", I'm sure you can do that by yourself by googling a bit.
Common typo, what they meant to type was "popular opinion over climate change".
No, they mean the scientific consensus.
The "popular opinion" is quite different. Since it is spread by the mass media, it contains de facto exaggerations, and hence has not much to do with the science.
On a side note, regarding the AGW debate, a decent attempt at objectivity here, with a few interesting links in the info section: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVi0QSDcFQQ
In the real world there are deadlines, and it's entirely the developer's responsibility to be able to meet those deadlines without using such "dirty coding tricks". Good developers should have tested their code so as to not have serious problems to fix at the last minute, and designed it so as to be able to extend it easily.
Yes, because deadlines are always reasonable and never pushed up. And change orders are a myth.
Nope. Deadlines are often unreasonable. Welcome to the real world. But as a good software developer, you should be able to cope with that too, and without last-minute hide-the-problem hacks.
In the real world there are deadlines, and it's entirely the developer's responsibility to be able to meet those deadlines without using such "dirty coding tricks". Good developers should have tested their code so as to not have serious problems to fix at the last minute, and designed it so as to be able to extend it easily.
And putting such "if" statements is not solving the problem - not even temporarily - but hiding the bug.
Right, nobody said it was easy. That's probably why software development is not for everybody.
Open-source software is great, but doesn't really matter when all politicians are corrupt and most of the country have other priorities than voting, like getting to feed their families and avoid being killed by one side or the other.
Giving Win 7 a chance is like giving peace a chance. Lots of good will and not much in return.
"This undermines the credibility of what has been considered the gold standard of proof in criminal cases. "
It doesn't. The credibility still lies with the lab scientists themselves handling the DNA samples, as the infamous OJ Simpson case showed.
"modern-day environmentalism serves as a belief system "
Whether people construct belief systems around facts doesn't invalidate the facts.
"Obviously we haven't destroyed our habitat in any significant way, since there are more of us around than ever."
We haven't destroyed it yet, but we are well on our way.
"And why would causing the mass extinction of other species make us less than ideal as an advanced life form anyway?"
Because the extinction of other species is not needed for our own survival? Because we are supposed to be organisms more evolved than mere viruses propagating themselves and destroying one host cell after another?
"The attitude that we have some 'higher purpose' or that everything else is somehow more sacred than us is a strange to me."
It shouldn't be.
Advanced life forms like humans should look for higher purpose than just mere existence. Even if that means inventing all kinds of meaningless spiritual constructs. Otherwise they wouldn't be advanced in the first place.
Why make artificial bones, when there are tons of this stuff readily available but left unused in those wasted spaces we superstitious beings call cemeteries?
Recycle, goddammit.
There are no such things than bad evolutionary designs. Evolutionary traits of organisms that have managed to survive are by definition all successes.
It is about survival & reproduction, not perfection.
"that the Sun may not be the ideal kind of star to nurture life, and that the Earth may not be the ideal size."
Homo sapiens may not be the ideal kind of advanced life form either. Otherwise it wouldn't destroy its own habitat on a global scale, nor cause avoidable mass extinction of other species. The good news? We don't really need to start worrying about the sun quitting on us. We'll be long gone before that, and I don't mean on another planet. I mean gone in a dinosaurial kind of way...
Sorry, but I'll have to agree with sabiland here. You'll need much more than some 10-years accelerated evolution from rat brains & increase in computing capacity to even come close to a human brain.
As for leading to disaster, we won't need to recreate the human brain for that, the existing ones are more than enough.
"And who is providing the Iranian government with the technical know-how to implement these censoring measures?"
? And why would you think Iran needs any non-Iranian consultancy or gov to implement those technologies? Do you really believe that Iranians don't have any know-how of their own?
If all these fading democracies have found to fight racism, is to throw people in jail for their opinions, I'd say there is little possibility of that being effective. If anything, thought-crime turns those people into Free Speech martyrs. Not really a good idea.
If a shrink diagnoses you with Embittement Disorder, punch him in the nose and refuse to pay his consultation bill. There's the chance that you'll be cured instantly, by Bitterness Transfer.
There are 25,000 Jews living in Iran, they are not "exterminated", they are not even discriminated against (apart from the fact that they cannot get into the Army) , they are represented in Parliament, and they have resisted Israel's repeated calls & economic incentives to emigrate to the Jewish state.
So please cut the Islamophobic rant & (Hate) propaganda for simpletons. It might work on the FOX channel "fair & balanced" News, just not around here.
Beware the soda drink epidemic that is paralyzing our muscles while the swine-flu pandemic threat is at level-5, terrorists are playing in your backyard, child abductors and serial killers are lurking right outside your home , the Iranian nuclear threat is coming to a theater near you, and global warming is killing the planet.
Let us know if we left out anything, we will be more than happy to give you a reason to fear those too.
In my experience, employers prefer years of actual experience.
Having a masters degree says nothing about how well you can withstand the pressure of the real world, and how well you can work with others, two things that most IT companies value highly.
'I didn't expect it to go that far. I expected it to be in blogs and sites, but on mainstream quality papers? I was very surprised.'
Why surprised? There are no mainstream "quality" paper, nor mainstream real journalism for quite some time now... at least since all mainstream media has come under the control of a handful of corporations not really bothered by information inaccuracy.
And that would be because they dont need to use force, when it is easier to control people's thought process through education and mass media.
That would be the only analogy with Orwell I can see: the narrowing of the range of thought.
.
Not necessarily A Good Thing. I mean, nothing is a complete failure, since it can always serve as a bad example...
.
What is "irreversible" seems to be the transformation of the so-called "top scientists" into funding-whores and false prophets of Doom.