You do realize that both sides are crying "conspiracy!", right?
Yes, I recognize that I believe that the energy sector is deliberately trying to cast doubt on scientific facts and conclusions.
Outrageous, I know. It's like accusing the tobacco and pharmaceutical industries of peddling their products even when they have evidence that they kill people, or Enron staging power outages to influence an election.
Everyone should know that corporations embody all that is good in our species, and would never cause, or even allow, harm for financial gain.
And that science has always been a hotbed of corruption, and people who fake results are put on a pedestal instead of kicked out of their field in irreparable disgrace. And anyone who has a new idea *is* kicked out in disgrace, because it threatens the flow of money to the established interests.
Himalayan glaciers are melting, global warming. Himalayan glaciers aren't actually melting, global warming.
When your theory is able to equally explain any set of circumstances, you don't have a theory, you have phlogoston.
Actually, global warming isn't able to explain some of the circumstances you mention. However, the fact that some of those circumstances don't actually exist pretty much excuses it from needing to explain them.
FYI, that happened some while back. Apparently you missed it.
then the logical thing to do is build nuclear power plants.
I actually like the idea of nuclear power, but we need to mature as a species so that we won't cut corners in design and construction, and will take responsibility for managing the waste.
Show me the numbers. Not someone's opinion about what they mean, but a detailed description of each experiment and the raw data that resulted.
They already have: it's called the scientific literature. It's not their fault you haven't taken the time and effort to read and understand it.
This reminds me of the scene in Suldrun's Garden where Carfilhiot's Captain of the Guard stands above the gate and boldly challenges any of the victorious besiegers to come up and fight him one-on-one, and the besiegers just shood him down with arrows.
1. The vast majority of scientists who have devoted their professional lives to the study of the earth's climate;
I think you will find that the vast majority of so called climate scientists have believed in AGW from a very young age and are not attempting to disprove the theory (as you would normally do in science), but to reinforce it as much as possible so as to convince politicians to save the world from what they passionately believe will otherwise result in the extinction of our entire species and perhaps even all animal life on the planet.
Alas, science is now dominated by automatons who were too dull witted to avoid childhood brainwashing like you did.
How come GW deniers can't base their arguments on evidence, instead of childish attempts to discredit the actual experts?
What would you think of someone who invoked your argument to dismiss the expanding universe, continental drift, biological evolution, quantum mechanics, thermodynamics, the heliocentric solar system, et many ceteras? "Bah, all those astronomers / geologists / biologists / physicists were brainwashed in school, but *I* know better!"
You could just stop listening to the political sides and listen to climate scientists instead. Problem solved.
Wrong, because the scientists have politicized themselves and the science.
If a scientist advocates for some political action to be taken or not taken or policy to be enacted or not enacted then he has politicized himself, and his opinion is political, not scientific.
That's ridiculous. If astronomers detect an asteroid on a collision course with the earth and testify before Congress about it, does that disqualify them from having an opinion on the topic? (And justify ignoring the threat?)
Scientists do studies, perform experiments, and publish papers on purely scientific topics. They don't engage in political/ideological advocacy.
Scientists are people, and are entitled to advocacy just like everyone else. In fact, if they advocate for public policy based on facts, there's far more reason to listen to them than to most people advocating this or that.
Those advocating one side or the other are not scientists, at least while they are advocating.
So, no scientists have advocated one side over another, as the very act of advocacy disqualifies them as performing "science" and therefor their opions are not "scientific", but political.
Strat
That wins a prize for convoluted logic even on the internet.
If you don't like global warming, try arguing against the facts rather than for disqualifying the opinions of those who actually know the facts.
You could just stop listening to the eco-activists until they start the first step of the scientific method and make clear their necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement.
Problem solved:)
Here's a falsifiable claim, which I offer as established fact rather than hypothesis: The earth is getting warmer.
Now, what's the second step in your formulation of the scientific method, and is anyone engaged in that step?
Likewise, documentation of the actions of others (which you state are a smear operation to lie about AGW) would be facts; your judgment as to what they are intended to accomplish is an opinion.
Here is some introductory reading, if you're actually interested.
Maybe if the warmists tried persuasion, posting from their login account instead of calling everyone a scientifically illiterate jerkface dweeb as AC, they might be winning more people over to their point of view.
I'll be happy to call you a scientifically illiterate jerkface dweeb from my login account.
Does this help? You're welcome.
I'm under the impression that ACs are far more in favor of denying GW than acknowledging it. Maybe that's a false impression; it would be interesting if someone actually took the trouble to count. Maybe on an older story, where commenting is closed.
By my admittedly layman's interpretation of what read, the evidence for AGW has only been getting stronger over time
Perhaps because that's all that people are looking for. No matter what happens, it is inevitably spun as evidence for AGW.
Do you have the faintest idea how much prestige accrues to a scientist who overturns the common conception? Do we recognize the names of Einstein and Hubble because they were staunch supporters of the status quo?
If I was a climatologist and had actual evidence that global warming wasn't happening, I'd make myself famous in a heartbeat.
The really scary thing about global warming is how Republicans have group-thinked themselves into a scientifically idiotic shared point of view. Now, when they group think themselves into being anti-gay, pro-gun, anti-abortion, anti-Mexican, pro-death penalty, anti-poor and pro-rich, at least they didn't have to ignore laws of nature to group-think themselves into those positions. Attacking logic itself is way over the line.
If by "Republicans" you mean Republican politicians, they're just doing their job: trying to run the country for the short-term benefit of the ultra-rich.
He doesn't have to, because of the magical use of the meaningless term "Scientific consensus" by virtually all of the scientists and journalists writing about the field. What we're told, over and over, is that virtually all credible scientists are speaking with one voice.
The idea that science is somehow subject to a vote is even scarier than the idea that it should be subservient to religion.
We're not saying that reality is subject to a vote. We're saying "when in doubt, listen to the experts".
That can be problematic advice when the experts are strongly divided on the topic, but when there's near unanimity among all the experts in the world, sensible people listen to them.
And in fact people usually do. But curiously, when there's near unanimity among all the relevant scientists about a conclusion that some people don't like, some of those people excuse dismissing the opinions of the experts on the curious argument that "science isn't subject to a vote".
Climate change is big business. Those in the profession who don't push the agenda end up hungry.
Either that, or the scientists overseeing grant funding are actually competent, and don't waste money on crackpots who fail to grasp even the most basic results in the discipline.
Nah. It's gotta be the conspiracy.
ISTM that if someone has to defend their beliefs by invoking a vast international conspiracy involving almost every scientist in the relevant fields, they should re-examine their beliefs.
I mean really, we *laugh* at people who claim that the moon landings were a hoax.
Yet many GW-deniers and evolution-deniers do in fact defend their views by invoking a vast international conspiracy involving almost every scientist in the relevant fields.
a) No climatologist claims that they can explain "every single event ever observed", even if you limit that to relevant events.
b) Why do you think what climatologists say isn't falsifiable? Did thermometers stop working or something? Are the melting glaciers and ice caps irrelevant? Do you know of some climatologists' hypothesis where measurable quantities such as, say, warming, are irrelevant?
This is like saying that continental drift is an unfalsifiable hypothesis in an age when we can directly measure it.
I'm guessing that that doesn't mean what it sounds like!
Joking aside, I appreciate your forthright post. And I despise the fact that people mod down posts that state views that they don't agree with. (Much better, IMO, to mod them *up*, so that the post and the refutations (or attempts) will be read by more people.)
But IMO, here's the crux:
Let me summarize the debate. One side believes there is sufficient evidence for theory X. The other side believes there is insufficient evidence. The side that believes there is sufficient evidence believes that the evidence is so overwhelming that to be skeptical of it is of the same order as being skeptical of gravity.
I am not a climatologist, but I do know a bit about how science works. And I know that the overwhelming majority of *scientists* believes that there is sufficient evidence for the fact (not theory) of global warming. So for me there *aren't* two sides.
Now scientists aren't divinely inspired, and are in fact sometimes wrong, but in the big picture science bases its views on evidence, and even goes out of its way to look for refuting evidence. So for me this is like asking whether I should invest in someone's flying car business when the overwhelming majority of aeronautical engineers say that the design won't actually fly, contradicted by a smaller number of non-experts who publish their views as editorials in the Wall Street Journal rather than engineering journals. There simply isn't the slightest reason to examine "two sides". Especially when the contradictors resort to arguments that the entire field of aeronautical engineering are lying because they want the venture to fail. It's just nonsense.
I personally believe rational argument is virtually impossible on the topic of global warming. Devout AGW believers will not be swayed by any argument. To them AGW is self-evident and the burden of proof should be on the other side to prove that it is not happening.
No, AGW is based on evidence. As I said, I'm not a climatologist, but I can read.
The fact that the vast majority believes AGW is undeniably real and even some kind of immediate threat to our species makes it even more unlikely that any real evidence will ever be gathered.
FWIW, I do believe that AGW is undeniably real, but that the only "threat" is poses to our species is inconvenience, and probably a lot of deaths in wars by nations trying to optimize their own convenience at the expense of others, but hardly an extinction-level event. (*Maybe* a runaway instability will render our planet uninhabitable, but I'm not aware of any evidence that that is our fate.)
The fact that the vast majority believes AGW is undeniably real and even some kind of immediate threat to our species makes it even more unlikely that any real evidence will ever be gathered. Why bother to gather evidence about something that the majority of the world has already decided is undeniably true?
As a matter of fact, scientists *are* busy gathering additional evidence. The fact that both old and new evidence overwhelmingly support one conclusion is hardly a reason to deny that conclusion.
These days scientists (and I use that term loosely) focus on refining and reinforcing the argument in favor of AGW. Not so much on proving that it exists.
Scientists are also busy studying gravity and the expanding universe, but as with global warming, they're far past the point of needing to determine whether those phenomena exist.
....when it's extremely cold in the winter, scientists say thats just normal weather, but when it's extremely hot in the summer, it's global warming?
Maybe you could make us a list of scientists who are saying that.
We know about global warming, not from observing warm days, but from longitudinal measurements from all over the world.
And of course, we understand the mechanism. The "greenhouse" property of certain gasses that we have been spewing into the atmosphere in ever-increasing amounts since the beginning of the industrial age has been known IIRC for about 200 years.
Also, global warming doesn't imply warm winters in any particular location. It means more thermal energy in our atmosphere and oceans, which can destabilize that very complex dynamical system that we call "weather".
For an example of a mechanism whereby global warming can make winter colder in specific locations, see "The Winters of Our Discontent" in the December 2012 Scientific American.
But then, I'm guessing that you're not particularly interested in learning how scientists figure out what's going on, or you wouldn't be posting such nonsense. A "first post!" would have made you look less foolish.
Would draw this vitriolic response:
This is your typical AGW cheerleader and the reason the public is skeptical.
Someone just coming into this debate expresses a reservation or asks a well meaning question and shit like this gets thrown in their face by assholes like this.
You go right ahead calling a spade a spade and they will go right ahead calling you a fucking asshole and electing people who think the same.
OK, I'm not actually astonished at all, since this isn't my first time to visit the internet. And if pointing out that bullshit walks makes me a fucking asshole, then I'll wear the label gladly.
But more to the point, why would anyone base their opinion about a topic on the perceived manners, or lack thereof, of other people expressing their opinions, rather than on well established facts? That may be a great strategy for anyone who wants to support an opinion that is contradicted by the facts, but it's a piss-poor strategy for everyone else.
Because supporting Dark Matter requires believing in indetectable entities that somehow influence the entire universe around them, and that's too much for the average slashdotter to admit.
a) Dark matter is in fact detectable, by its gravitational effect. We just haven't figured out what it is.[*]
b) Like all other matter with mass, it does in fact influence the "entire" universe around it -- modulo that speed of light horizon effect thingy.
What I don't get is how rabidly so many people here oppose the existence of dark matter. I'm having trouble grokking a financial or religious motive for that one.
It's an "X" invented to plug a hole between a theory and observation, and with no evidence for it other than that discrepancy (despite much searching for it). That makes it inherently suspicious. That it supposedly makes up the lion's share of matter in the universe makes it even worse that we can't detect it in some other way.
However, attempts to plug the hole by modifying the theory of universal gravitation have been unsuccessful. So dark matter as a theory survives.
Actually, it explains several apparently unrelated anomalies.
And FYI, MOND is very good at explaining galaxy rotation curves, but utterly fails at the other stuff.
Sorry, but I don't remember what the other stuff is or how dark matter explains it. But all that is a favorite topic at the Starts with a Bang blog, and in fact I notice that he has yet another post on it right now, so if you're interested it may be worth a read.
The ad hominem attacks aren't necessary, but typical of unskeptical-science types.
Sorry, but I believe in calling a spade a spade.
I have the utmost sympathy for someone who has an IQ of 70, but IMO people who are wilful idiots deserve all the crap anyone cares to dump on them.
I guess if you can't attack the argument, attack the person instead. At least you'll feel better. I see you did attack the argument earlier on, but you might as well not have bothered with a sign-off like that.
But you see, I *did* attack the argument. You're just latching on to the fact that I ended by mentioning that anyone who made the slightest effort to inform themselves never would have made the argument in the first place.
Maybe we should address the question of why you're doing that instead of responding to my refutation of the argument?
Slashdot Mirror
You do realize that both sides are crying "conspiracy!", right?
Yes, I recognize that I believe that the energy sector is deliberately trying to cast doubt on scientific facts and conclusions.
Outrageous, I know. It's like accusing the tobacco and pharmaceutical industries of peddling their products even when they have evidence that they kill people, or Enron staging power outages to influence an election.
Everyone should know that corporations embody all that is good in our species, and would never cause, or even allow, harm for financial gain.
And that science has always been a hotbed of corruption, and people who fake results are put on a pedestal instead of kicked out of their field in irreparable disgrace. And anyone who has a new idea *is* kicked out in disgrace, because it threatens the flow of money to the established interests.
All other fields have means to test the results and prove them false.
So does climatology. But the argument is that all the climatologists are in on a conspiracy to ignore or falsify the evidence.
Why can't physicists, biologists, astronomers, geologists, etc. do the same?
As a side question, could you explain what's "liberal" about psychology or climatology?
World gets warmer, global warming.
World gets colder, global warming.
World stays about the same, global warming.
Himalayan glaciers are melting, global warming. Himalayan glaciers aren't actually melting, global warming.
When your theory is able to equally explain any set of circumstances, you don't have a theory, you have phlogoston.
Actually, global warming isn't able to explain some of the circumstances you mention. However, the fact that some of those circumstances don't actually exist pretty much excuses it from needing to explain them.
If AGW is finally proven beyond any doubt
FYI, that happened some while back. Apparently you missed it.
then the logical thing to do is build nuclear power plants.
I actually like the idea of nuclear power, but we need to mature as a species so that we won't cut corners in design and construction, and will take responsibility for managing the waste.
Show me the numbers. Not someone's opinion about what they mean, but a detailed description of each experiment and the raw data that resulted.
They already have: it's called the scientific literature. It's not their fault you haven't taken the time and effort to read and understand it.
This reminds me of the scene in Suldrun's Garden where Carfilhiot's Captain of the Guard stands above the gate and boldly challenges any of the victorious besiegers to come up and fight him one-on-one, and the besiegers just shood him down with arrows.
I think you misunderstood the original post. IIRC Crichton has taken a public GW-denialist stance.
Also, his fiction has a marked tendency toward technophobia, which may or may not be relevant.
1. The vast majority of scientists who have devoted their professional lives to the study of the earth's climate;
I think you will find that the vast majority of so called climate scientists have believed in AGW from a very young age and are not attempting to disprove the theory (as you would normally do in science), but to reinforce it as much as possible so as to convince politicians to save the world from what they passionately believe will otherwise result in the extinction of our entire species and perhaps even all animal life on the planet.
Alas, science is now dominated by automatons who were too dull witted to avoid childhood brainwashing like you did.
How come GW deniers can't base their arguments on evidence, instead of childish attempts to discredit the actual experts?
What would you think of someone who invoked your argument to dismiss the expanding universe, continental drift, biological evolution, quantum mechanics, thermodynamics, the heliocentric solar system, et many ceteras? "Bah, all those astronomers / geologists / biologists / physicists were brainwashed in school, but *I* know better!"
You conveniently ignored point 1.
Not to mention how badly Al Gore is outnumbered by the other side on point 2.
But apparently his name still has the power to make a few knees jerk.
You could just stop listening to the political sides and listen to climate scientists instead.
Problem solved.
Wrong, because the scientists have politicized themselves and the science.
If a scientist advocates for some political action to be taken or not taken or policy to be enacted or not enacted then he has politicized himself, and his opinion is political, not scientific.
That's ridiculous. If astronomers detect an asteroid on a collision course with the earth and testify before Congress about it, does that disqualify them from having an opinion on the topic? (And justify ignoring the threat?)
Scientists do studies, perform experiments, and publish papers on purely scientific topics. They don't engage in political/ideological advocacy.
Scientists are people, and are entitled to advocacy just like everyone else. In fact, if they advocate for public policy based on facts, there's far more reason to listen to them than to most people advocating this or that.
Those advocating one side or the other are not scientists, at least while they are advocating.
So, no scientists have advocated one side over another, as the very act of advocacy disqualifies them as performing "science" and therefor their opions are not "scientific", but political.
Strat
That wins a prize for convoluted logic even on the internet.
If you don't like global warming, try arguing against the facts rather than for disqualifying the opinions of those who actually know the facts.
You could just stop listening to the eco-activists until they start the first step of the scientific method and make clear their necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement.
Problem solved :)
Here's a falsifiable claim, which I offer as established fact rather than hypothesis: The earth is getting warmer.
Now, what's the second step in your formulation of the scientific method, and is anyone engaged in that step?
Likewise, documentation of the actions of others (which you state are a smear operation to lie about AGW) would be facts; your judgment as to what they are intended to accomplish is an opinion.
Here is some introductory reading, if you're actually interested.
Maybe if the warmists tried persuasion, posting from their login account instead of calling everyone a scientifically illiterate jerkface dweeb as AC, they might be winning more people over to their point of view.
I'll be happy to call you a scientifically illiterate jerkface dweeb from my login account.
Does this help? You're welcome.
I'm under the impression that ACs are far more in favor of denying GW than acknowledging it. Maybe that's a false impression; it would be interesting if someone actually took the trouble to count. Maybe on an older story, where commenting is closed.
By my admittedly layman's interpretation of what read, the evidence for AGW has only been getting stronger over time
Perhaps because that's all that people are looking for. No matter what happens, it is inevitably spun as evidence for AGW.
Do you have the faintest idea how much prestige accrues to a scientist who overturns the common conception? Do we recognize the names of Einstein and Hubble because they were staunch supporters of the status quo?
If I was a climatologist and had actual evidence that global warming wasn't happening, I'd make myself famous in a heartbeat.
Link to the "actual data", please?
Sorry, but we don't have the technology for HTML links to alternative realities.
The really scary thing about global warming is how Republicans have group-thinked themselves into a scientifically idiotic shared point of view. Now, when they group think themselves into being anti-gay, pro-gun, anti-abortion, anti-Mexican, pro-death penalty, anti-poor and pro-rich, at least they didn't have to ignore laws of nature to group-think themselves into those positions. Attacking logic itself is way over the line.
If by "Republicans" you mean Republican politicians, they're just doing their job: trying to run the country for the short-term benefit of the ultra-rich.
He doesn't have to, because of the magical use of the meaningless term "Scientific consensus" by virtually all of the scientists and journalists writing about the field. What we're told, over and over, is that virtually all credible scientists are speaking with one voice.
The idea that science is somehow subject to a vote is even scarier than the idea that it should be subservient to religion.
We're not saying that reality is subject to a vote. We're saying "when in doubt, listen to the experts".
That can be problematic advice when the experts are strongly divided on the topic, but when there's near unanimity among all the experts in the world, sensible people listen to them.
And in fact people usually do. But curiously, when there's near unanimity among all the relevant scientists about a conclusion that some people don't like, some of those people excuse dismissing the opinions of the experts on the curious argument that "science isn't subject to a vote".
Climate change is big business. Those in the profession who don't push the agenda end up hungry.
Either that, or the scientists overseeing grant funding are actually competent, and don't waste money on crackpots who fail to grasp even the most basic results in the discipline.
Nah. It's gotta be the conspiracy.
ISTM that if someone has to defend their beliefs by invoking a vast international conspiracy involving almost every scientist in the relevant fields, they should re-examine their beliefs.
I mean really, we *laugh* at people who claim that the moon landings were a hoax.
Yet many GW-deniers and evolution-deniers do in fact defend their views by invoking a vast international conspiracy involving almost every scientist in the relevant fields.
[parent post not worth quoting]
a) No climatologist claims that they can explain "every single event ever observed", even if you limit that to relevant events.
b) Why do you think what climatologists say isn't falsifiable? Did thermometers stop working or something? Are the melting glaciers and ice caps irrelevant? Do you know of some climatologists' hypothesis where measurable quantities such as, say, warming, are irrelevant?
This is like saying that continental drift is an unfalsifiable hypothesis in an age when we can directly measure it.
I am pro-GW (I am in favor of it)
I'm guessing that that doesn't mean what it sounds like!
Joking aside, I appreciate your forthright post. And I despise the fact that people mod down posts that state views that they don't agree with. (Much better, IMO, to mod them *up*, so that the post and the refutations (or attempts) will be read by more people.)
But IMO, here's the crux:
Let me summarize the debate. One side believes there is sufficient evidence for theory X. The other side believes there is insufficient evidence. The side that believes there is sufficient evidence believes that the evidence is so overwhelming that to be skeptical of it is of the same order as being skeptical of gravity.
I am not a climatologist, but I do know a bit about how science works. And I know that the overwhelming majority of *scientists* believes that there is sufficient evidence for the fact (not theory) of global warming. So for me there *aren't* two sides.
Now scientists aren't divinely inspired, and are in fact sometimes wrong, but in the big picture science bases its views on evidence, and even goes out of its way to look for refuting evidence. So for me this is like asking whether I should invest in someone's flying car business when the overwhelming majority of aeronautical engineers say that the design won't actually fly, contradicted by a smaller number of non-experts who publish their views as editorials in the Wall Street Journal rather than engineering journals. There simply isn't the slightest reason to examine "two sides". Especially when the contradictors resort to arguments that the entire field of aeronautical engineering are lying because they want the venture to fail. It's just nonsense.
I personally believe rational argument is virtually impossible on the topic of global warming. Devout AGW believers will not be swayed by any argument. To them AGW is self-evident and the burden of proof should be on the other side to prove that it is not happening.
No, AGW is based on evidence. As I said, I'm not a climatologist, but I can read.
The fact that the vast majority believes AGW is undeniably real and even some kind of immediate threat to our species makes it even more unlikely that any real evidence will ever be gathered.
FWIW, I do believe that AGW is undeniably real, but that the only "threat" is poses to our species is inconvenience, and probably a lot of deaths in wars by nations trying to optimize their own convenience at the expense of others, but hardly an extinction-level event. (*Maybe* a runaway instability will render our planet uninhabitable, but I'm not aware of any evidence that that is our fate.)
The fact that the vast majority believes AGW is undeniably real and even some kind of immediate threat to our species makes it even more unlikely that any real evidence will ever be gathered. Why bother to gather evidence about something that the majority of the world has already decided is undeniably true?
As a matter of fact, scientists *are* busy gathering additional evidence. The fact that both old and new evidence overwhelmingly support one conclusion is hardly a reason to deny that conclusion.
These days scientists (and I use that term loosely) focus on refining and reinforcing the argument in favor of AGW. Not so much on proving that it exists.
Scientists are also busy studying gravity and the expanding universe, but as with global warming, they're far past the point of needing to determine whether those phenomena exist.
Truly I'm astonished that this post:
....when it's extremely cold in the winter, scientists say thats just normal weather, but when it's extremely hot in the summer, it's global warming?
Maybe you could make us a list of scientists who are saying that.
We know about global warming, not from observing warm days, but from longitudinal measurements from all over the world.
And of course, we understand the mechanism. The "greenhouse" property of certain gasses that we have been spewing into the atmosphere in ever-increasing amounts since the beginning of the industrial age has been known IIRC for about 200 years.
Also, global warming doesn't imply warm winters in any particular location. It means more thermal energy in our atmosphere and oceans, which can destabilize that very complex dynamical system that we call "weather".
For an example of a mechanism whereby global warming can make winter colder in specific locations, see "The Winters of Our Discontent" in the December 2012 Scientific American.
But then, I'm guessing that you're not particularly interested in learning how scientists figure out what's going on, or you wouldn't be posting such nonsense. A "first post!" would have made you look less foolish.
Would draw this vitriolic response:
This is your typical AGW cheerleader and the reason the public is skeptical.
Someone just coming into this debate expresses a reservation or asks a well meaning question and shit like this gets thrown in their face by assholes like this.
You go right ahead calling a spade a spade and they will go right ahead calling you a fucking asshole and electing people who think the same.
OK, I'm not actually astonished at all, since this isn't my first time to visit the internet. And if pointing out that bullshit walks makes me a fucking asshole, then I'll wear the label gladly.
But more to the point, why would anyone base their opinion about a topic on the perceived manners, or lack thereof, of other people expressing their opinions, rather than on well established facts? That may be a great strategy for anyone who wants to support an opinion that is contradicted by the facts, but it's a piss-poor strategy for everyone else.
Interestingly, "Rejection of creationism" is a phrase I'm surprised by.
It surprised me too, not that you call attention to what I wrote. I meant to say "creationism" or "rejection of biological evolution".
Because supporting Dark Matter requires believing in indetectable entities that somehow influence the entire universe around them, and that's too much for the average slashdotter to admit.
a) Dark matter is in fact detectable, by its gravitational effect. We just haven't figured out what it is.[*]
b) Like all other matter with mass, it does in fact influence the "entire" universe around it -- modulo that speed of light horizon effect thingy.
[*] This is hardly novel in science. For example, we detected "nebulas" centuries before we figured out that some of them are distant galaxies. Almost a thousand years in the case of Andromeda (see link).
It's an "X" invented to plug a hole between a theory and observation, and with no evidence for it other than that discrepancy (despite much searching for it). That makes it inherently suspicious. That it supposedly makes up the lion's share of matter in the universe makes it even worse that we can't detect it in some other way.
However, attempts to plug the hole by modifying the theory of universal gravitation have been unsuccessful. So dark matter as a theory survives.
Actually, it explains several apparently unrelated anomalies.
And FYI, MOND is very good at explaining galaxy rotation curves, but utterly fails at the other stuff.
Sorry, but I don't remember what the other stuff is or how dark matter explains it. But all that is a favorite topic at the Starts with a Bang blog, and in fact I notice that he has yet another post on it right now, so if you're interested it may be worth a read.
The ad hominem attacks aren't necessary, but typical of unskeptical-science types.
Sorry, but I believe in calling a spade a spade.
I have the utmost sympathy for someone who has an IQ of 70, but IMO people who are wilful idiots deserve all the crap anyone cares to dump on them.
I guess if you can't attack the argument, attack the person instead. At least you'll feel better. I see you did attack the argument earlier on, but you might as well not have bothered with a sign-off like that.
But you see, I *did* attack the argument. You're just latching on to the fact that I ended by mentioning that anyone who made the slightest effort to inform themselves never would have made the argument in the first place.
Maybe we should address the question of why you're doing that instead of responding to my refutation of the argument?
The ad hominem attacks aren't necessary, but typical of unskeptical-science types.
Sorry, but I believe in calling a spade a spade.
I have the utmost sympathy for someone who has an IQ of 70, but IMO people who are wilful idiots deserve all the crap anyone cares to dump on them.