Actually this is all many of us 'deniers' would ask. If the global warming believers would go over the data themselves and reach their own conclusions based on their own thinking without relying on 'experts' I would have a lot more respect for them. Unfortunately many people tend to treat science as if it were a religion and just believe whatever the 'experts' say without doing any thinking for themselves. As Francis Bacon cautioned, I prefer to stick close to the data itself and view any conclusions based on that data with the greatest degree of skepticism. Even the data itself should be questioned.
Just because religionists say a particular thing does not mean it is wrong. It is certainly true that the absence of evidence is not evidence of its absence. Until recently we didn't have any evidence that planets existed outside of our star system. Now we have an abundance of evidence. Before we had this evidence it would have been irrational to make any sort of scientific claim about either the abundance or the rarity of exoplanets. We now have a great deal of evidence that they are common. That doesn't mean that asserting they were common before we had the evidence was either rational or scientific.
In a similar way people who claim that life in the galaxy or in the universe is either common or extremely rare are both being irrational. There is no evidence either way. The scientifically correct path is not to make any claims at all about the subject. A subject we know absolutely nothing about. In a discussion like this the debate is not between pro-alien and anti-alien, but between those who respect the scientific method and those who don't.
I think we are at a point where most adults have grown up their entire lives with the assumption that certain great discoveries and advancements will be made in their lifetime. Moon bases. Mars missions. Evidence (at least) of extra-terrestrial life.
I never made any of those assumptions. Especially not about evidence for extraterrestrial life. It saddens me that so many people are so wildly, unrealistically optimistic about things which almost certainly will never happen while they are alive.
Garbage in garbage out. There is currently insufficient data upon which to base any sort of 'estimate'. There is currently no way to know how many earth-like worlds there are in the galaxy. It certainly seems likely that the number of earth-like worlds in any galaxy would be a non-zero number, but currently all we can do is speculate wildly. So far we haven't found even one other earth-like world. All we have found is that there seem to be a large variety of planets orbiting many, perhaps most, stars at a large variety of orbital distances, including some in the goldilocks zones. Now we have some evidence from which we can conclude that planets are relatively common, but we simply cannot say how common earth-like water planets are.
You seem to be assuming that SETI is expecting to find radio leakage from other worlds. That simply is not the case. SETI is based upon the idea of civilizations who might choose to attempt to communicate intentionally either with the entire galaxy using some method quite similar to pulsars or via an automated EM beam that settles on a star system for some period of time before moving on to another. Either way whatever technology they use to communicate with each other on their own planet doesn't factor into any assumptions about their galaxy-wide communication efforts.
The only way we know of to communicate at light year distances is with electromagnetic radiation, most likely either somewhere in the microwave/millimeter wave spectrum or in the visible spectrum.
Of course it is also possible that they think of communication via electromagnetic wave modulation to be as primitive as smoke signals or cave drawings might seem to us. It is possible that they make use of some principle of physics that we won't even discover for a few hundred thousand years. If so then they might only use EM communication when communicating with very, very primitive societies. Whether a beacon would use such primitive methods would depend on whether they want to communicate with primitive societies.
Just as we can't make the assumption that life is on every non-earth-like planet. In fact making any assumption about extraterrestrial life whatever is pretty silly and certainly not science. More philosophy or religion than science. Perhaps a few hundred thousand years after we develop a practical interstellar space drive we will have some evidence upon which to base a conclusion. Until then the most scientific thing one can do in response to the question of life on other planets is to STFU. Which, for some reason these so called scientists chose not to do. Perhaps they are trying to get funding for some project of theirs.
Only buy beef from ranches with 100% grass fed cows. Anyone who has been lucky enough to eat steak in Argentina or Uruguay knows that US beef is tasteless junk anyway. Argentine cows graze naturally on grass and they are the best tasting cows in the world.
Of course not eating animals in the first place isn't a bad idea. It's a filthy habit which unfortunately many of us learn in childhood and find it difficult to break even when, as adults, we are aware of how barbaric it is. I think Mark Zuckerberg has the right idea. Only eat animals that you are able to look in the eye and kill yourself.
Ironically the only way I have ever justified the murder of animals because they taste good is when I think of myself as a scavenger. The animal was already killed by some heartless bastard somewhere. I am just picking at the rotting corpse like a hyena. Even if I had boycotted meat my whole life it wouldn't have stopped the cow/pig/chicken genocide.
In 1906, a typhoid outbreak occurred in a household on Oyster Bay in Long Island where Mary Mallon had recently worked. The owner of the house hired Dr. George Soper, a famed sanitary engineer, to investigate the domestic epidemic.
I don't think someone who is skeptical about AGW theory would really want to be a climate scientist. It's a form of selection bias. I'm not even sure that an AGW skeptic would even be allowed to become one. His professors would expect AGW consistent answers on exams. If by some miracle he managed to graduate and get a job as a climate scientist if anyone found out about his doubts he would be tossed out faster than an atheist priest. You don't see many atheist priests for much the same reason. Does that prove atheism wrong? Because none of the religious experts believe in it?
Scientifically we can only say that such conclusions or interpretations seem to agree with experimental results. Most of your examples are things that can be verified through experiment. What kind of experiments have been performed that lead to the inevitable conclusion that the planet as a whole is warming and that that warming is caused by higher levels of CO2?
As far as the warming itself it could be shown (although I haven't seen the raw data) that temperatures have been increasing at various locations around the world. Even if you can show that you still must demonstrate that such changes are a result of higher levels of CO2. That second part is much trickier. Temperature data is not sufficient to show it. What you really need is a control. Another planet identical to the earth except without any combustion. Perhaps climatologists have created exactly that and I haven't heard about it. I would certainly like to hear about any experiments that climate scientists have performed which demonstrate that the entire planet is warming, that it will continue to do so forever, and that the warming is in fact due to CO2.
I doubt there are really too many numbers. For instance you could pick just one weather station and show the annual averages over a 30 year period. That would give you only 30 numbers. Admittedly supplying the monthly or daily data for that station would result in a lot of numbers, but if this debate is as important as some of you believe it to be, if it's really a matter of life or death for our entire species, then why hesitate?
If I were on the 'sky is falling' side supplying hard numbers from specific stations and other raw data is precisely what I would do. It's the only way to actually have a scientific debate. Assuming that your audience just doesn't have the attention span is a cop out. Scientists should respect the scientific method. And asking people to take your analysis on faith is not science.
To a skeptic you can say, "Look at this pattern here. See how every month is a bit warmer than the previous one? Then I would point to another station in a distant part of the world and point out the same pattern. It doesn't really seem so difficult to me.
Also if the data is "publicly available" then how about a link? And I mean a direct link. Not a web site with a political slant who interprets the data for me. It's another thing that is rarely supplied in these arguments. Again, the data is everything in this debate. Well it might not prove that the warming trend was caused by combustion, but it would at least demonstrate the trend unambiguously. I'm curious as to how the data from individual stations is compiled into something that represents the entire planet. Of course if every single station around the globe is precisely in agreement then that is pretty convincing.
Admittedly even if I found the temperature data to be convincing. Even if the warming trend seemed conclusive. I would hesitate to jump to the conclusion that combustion was the cause of it. That really is a very difficult thing to demonstrate. Because the 'experiment' lacks a control. If climate scientist can figure out a way around that problem it would certainly help to sell the idea of AGW to rational skeptics.
In making a scientific case there are only two things to worry about: raw data and the logical steps that lead to any conclusion you might have arrived at based on that data. All of these sorts of arguments should be focused on those things. Not on the appeals to authority and attempts to discredit any 'deniers'. That's what is so great about geniune science it isn't a matter of opinion or even interpretation. The data speaks for itself.
Ironically it's the rich people who would be the least hurt by an exponential increase in the cost of electricity and only being allowed to heat their homes with electric heat. I can barely afford the cost of electricity now. If the price quadrupled I'd have to stop using it completely. Probably I'd just move to one of the countries that doesn't believe in the AGW religion. I highly doubt the AGWers are ever going to be able to get a consensus from every government on the planet, and even if they do I bet a lot of governments won't bother to enforce the restrictions.
Is climatology even a science? It seems like none of their "experiments" have any controls. Are stock market predictions also a science? Do climatologists major in something called "climatology" in university?
The vast majority of people arguing that AGW is real don't even make scientific arguments. Their arguments are generally limited to Argument by Authority and work their way to Ad Hominem attacks.
I wish just once we would see references to actual temperature data and I don't mean just graphs. Graphs can be deceptive. I mean the raw data that is used to make the graphs. Because that's where the evidence is. In that data. But it's never trotted out. If the anti-AGW people really want to convince skeptics, really want to make their case to rational people then they cannot ask for faith or claim that consensus = truth. Those are religious arguments. Not scientific ones. They have to actually go through each step. From the specific temperature readings to the conclusion that the pattern is non-repeating and 100% caused by combustion. And claiming that skeptics are too stupid to understand the evidence is always a great way to 'win' your argument.
The conclusions they have come to, as a massive consensus, is that AGW is very much real and significant, and cannot be explained away by natural means
How did they reach that conclusion? I don't let other people do my thinking for me. I want to see their data and trace their chain of logic. It's especially important when politics are involved. Anyone who doesn't do that doesn't have a leg to stand on in the debate.
The earth was the centre of the universe - but scientists proved that wrong
Eventually it was shown to be an incorrect model. Strangely enough the scientific data more closely matched Ptolemy's epicycle geocentric model than Copernicus's heliocentric model. For a while at least.
The earth was created by $DEITY - is not in the least bit an area of scientific enquiry
I believe that astrophysicists do consider themselves to be scientists. Of course I don't disagree that "god did it" is not science.
Any scientist who "knows that they are right" is not much of a scientist. There is no such thing as certainty in science. Well except of course for AGW which is literally impossible to deny. That's why we deniers are clinically insane and should probably be locked up or exterminated. For our own good of course.
This debate has become too politicized. I'd like to see the raw data. Do you have a link to the actual temperatures measured at specific stations over a long period of time? Also how do explain the downward trends? Surely if we are constantly increasing the amount of CO2 we should see a steady upward trend as the greenhouse effect does its work. I would think you'd have to have some explanation as to why the most convincing graph includes such long cooling trends.
So scientific truth is determined by taking a vote. Riight. As someone else pointed out you have just caused a great victory against atheism and in favor of religionists everywhere.
1. I think you are misinterpreting Kuhn. 2. Kuhn is not perfect. He is quite capable of being wrong.
I'm not sure that Kuhn was arguing that paradigm shifts were how science should be conducted, but rather that that it's just something that happens from time to time. I believe it is supposed to show that scientists are not 100% pure seekers of truth. That they can be affected by politics and bias. Taking a vote never leads to the truth. Only the scientific experiment can do that. If you're lucky.
It's pretty difficult to be against fusion power. This denier would be on board with that. I'd even be fine with more nuclear power plants. Yes. Even in my backyard. I like radiation.
Actually I think any anti-AGW person who does not like nuclear fission power because it is too risky or dangerous is a huge hypocrite. After all, they claim to believe that we are all going to die if we don't stop burning stuff. And soon. What's the risk of a Chernobyl or Fukushima or Three Mile Island compared to that? Certain death vs. only a chance of death.
Well I don't disagree with you there. Burning pretty much anything causes harm to the environment and coal is particularly bad in that respect. However it does allow cheap electricity that poor people can afford to actually use. Most other schemes might be able to supply power to rich people, but it would have a hard time giving electricity to the masses. I can barely afford electricity now. It's a major portion of my monthly budget. I can't imagine how much non-combustion methods of electricity generation would cost. It wouldn't be cheap.
Nuclear power is one possible solution. Still more expensive than coal, but it doesn't require combustion. I'm unsure as to whether anti AGW people are advocating going 100% nuclear though. Some do advocate that of course and you'd get no argument from me. You don't have to believe in AGW or be against AGW in order to think nuclear is a nice clean form of energy. And France seems to do pretty well with it. But basing the benefits of nuclear power on AGW is a bit of a stretch. Not everyone believes in it.
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Actually this is all many of us 'deniers' would ask. If the global warming believers would go over the data themselves and reach their own conclusions based on their own thinking without relying on 'experts' I would have a lot more respect for them. Unfortunately many people tend to treat science as if it were a religion and just believe whatever the 'experts' say without doing any thinking for themselves. As Francis Bacon cautioned, I prefer to stick close to the data itself and view any conclusions based on that data with the greatest degree of skepticism. Even the data itself should be questioned.
Just because religionists say a particular thing does not mean it is wrong. It is certainly true that the absence of evidence is not evidence of its absence. Until recently we didn't have any evidence that planets existed outside of our star system. Now we have an abundance of evidence. Before we had this evidence it would have been irrational to make any sort of scientific claim about either the abundance or the rarity of exoplanets. We now have a great deal of evidence that they are common. That doesn't mean that asserting they were common before we had the evidence was either rational or scientific.
In a similar way people who claim that life in the galaxy or in the universe is either common or extremely rare are both being irrational. There is no evidence either way. The scientifically correct path is not to make any claims at all about the subject. A subject we know absolutely nothing about. In a discussion like this the debate is not between pro-alien and anti-alien, but between those who respect the scientific method and those who don't.
I think we are at a point where most adults have grown up their entire lives with the assumption that certain great discoveries and advancements will be made in their lifetime. Moon bases. Mars missions. Evidence (at least) of extra-terrestrial life.
I never made any of those assumptions. Especially not about evidence for extraterrestrial life. It saddens me that so many people are so wildly, unrealistically optimistic about things which almost certainly will never happen while they are alive.
Garbage in garbage out. There is currently insufficient data upon which to base any sort of 'estimate'. There is currently no way to know how many earth-like worlds there are in the galaxy. It certainly seems likely that the number of earth-like worlds in any galaxy would be a non-zero number, but currently all we can do is speculate wildly. So far we haven't found even one other earth-like world. All we have found is that there seem to be a large variety of planets orbiting many, perhaps most, stars at a large variety of orbital distances, including some in the goldilocks zones. Now we have some evidence from which we can conclude that planets are relatively common, but we simply cannot say how common earth-like water planets are.
You seem to be assuming that SETI is expecting to find radio leakage from other worlds. That simply is not the case. SETI is based upon the idea of civilizations who might choose to attempt to communicate intentionally either with the entire galaxy using some method quite similar to pulsars or via an automated EM beam that settles on a star system for some period of time before moving on to another. Either way whatever technology they use to communicate with each other on their own planet doesn't factor into any assumptions about their galaxy-wide communication efforts.
The only way we know of to communicate at light year distances is with electromagnetic radiation, most likely either somewhere in the microwave/millimeter wave spectrum or in the visible spectrum.
Of course it is also possible that they think of communication via electromagnetic wave modulation to be as primitive as smoke signals or cave drawings might seem to us. It is possible that they make use of some principle of physics that we won't even discover for a few hundred thousand years. If so then they might only use EM communication when communicating with very, very primitive societies. Whether a beacon would use such primitive methods would depend on whether they want to communicate with primitive societies.
Just as we can't make the assumption that life is on every non-earth-like planet. In fact making any assumption about extraterrestrial life whatever is pretty silly and certainly not science. More philosophy or religion than science. Perhaps a few hundred thousand years after we develop a practical interstellar space drive we will have some evidence upon which to base a conclusion. Until then the most scientific thing one can do in response to the question of life on other planets is to STFU. Which, for some reason these so called scientists chose not to do. Perhaps they are trying to get funding for some project of theirs.
Only buy beef from ranches with 100% grass fed cows. Anyone who has been lucky enough to eat steak in Argentina or Uruguay knows that US beef is tasteless junk anyway. Argentine cows graze naturally on grass and they are the best tasting cows in the world.
Of course not eating animals in the first place isn't a bad idea. It's a filthy habit which unfortunately many of us learn in childhood and find it difficult to break even when, as adults, we are aware of how barbaric it is. I think Mark Zuckerberg has the right idea. Only eat animals that you are able to look in the eye and kill yourself.
Ironically the only way I have ever justified the murder of animals because they taste good is when I think of myself as a scavenger. The animal was already killed by some heartless bastard somewhere. I am just picking at the rotting corpse like a hyena. Even if I had boycotted meat my whole life it wouldn't have stopped the cow/pig/chicken genocide.
He hired a janitor?
I don't believe you. I think you are lying, and in fact there is a good chance that you work for the TSA.
Okay. I'll bite. What is the colloquial meaning of "narcotics"?
I don't think someone who is skeptical about AGW theory would really want to be a climate scientist. It's a form of selection bias. I'm not even sure that an AGW skeptic would even be allowed to become one. His professors would expect AGW consistent answers on exams. If by some miracle he managed to graduate and get a job as a climate scientist if anyone found out about his doubts he would be tossed out faster than an atheist priest. You don't see many atheist priests for much the same reason. Does that prove atheism wrong? Because none of the religious experts believe in it?
How accurate is the temperature data from the medieval period? Were there many weather stations back then? Just curious.
Scientifically we can only say that such conclusions or interpretations seem to agree with experimental results. Most of your examples are things that can be verified through experiment. What kind of experiments have been performed that lead to the inevitable conclusion that the planet as a whole is warming and that that warming is caused by higher levels of CO2?
As far as the warming itself it could be shown (although I haven't seen the raw data) that temperatures have been increasing at various locations around the world. Even if you can show that you still must demonstrate that such changes are a result of higher levels of CO2. That second part is much trickier. Temperature data is not sufficient to show it. What you really need is a control. Another planet identical to the earth except without any combustion. Perhaps climatologists have created exactly that and I haven't heard about it. I would certainly like to hear about any experiments that climate scientists have performed which demonstrate that the entire planet is warming, that it will continue to do so forever, and that the warming is in fact due to CO2.
I doubt there are really too many numbers. For instance you could pick just one weather station and show the annual averages over a 30 year period. That would give you only 30 numbers. Admittedly supplying the monthly or daily data for that station would result in a lot of numbers, but if this debate is as important as some of you believe it to be, if it's really a matter of life or death for our entire species, then why hesitate?
If I were on the 'sky is falling' side supplying hard numbers from specific stations and other raw data is precisely what I would do. It's the only way to actually have a scientific debate. Assuming that your audience just doesn't have the attention span is a cop out. Scientists should respect the scientific method. And asking people to take your analysis on faith is not science.
To a skeptic you can say, "Look at this pattern here. See how every month is a bit warmer than the previous one? Then I would point to another station in a distant part of the world and point out the same pattern. It doesn't really seem so difficult to me.
Also if the data is "publicly available" then how about a link? And I mean a direct link. Not a web site with a political slant who interprets the data for me. It's another thing that is rarely supplied in these arguments. Again, the data is everything in this debate. Well it might not prove that the warming trend was caused by combustion, but it would at least demonstrate the trend unambiguously. I'm curious as to how the data from individual stations is compiled into something that represents the entire planet. Of course if every single station around the globe is precisely in agreement then that is pretty convincing.
Admittedly even if I found the temperature data to be convincing. Even if the warming trend seemed conclusive. I would hesitate to jump to the conclusion that combustion was the cause of it. That really is a very difficult thing to demonstrate. Because the 'experiment' lacks a control. If climate scientist can figure out a way around that problem it would certainly help to sell the idea of AGW to rational skeptics.
In making a scientific case there are only two things to worry about: raw data and the logical steps that lead to any conclusion you might have arrived at based on that data. All of these sorts of arguments should be focused on those things. Not on the appeals to authority and attempts to discredit any 'deniers'. That's what is so great about geniune science it isn't a matter of opinion or even interpretation. The data speaks for itself.
Ironically it's the rich people who would be the least hurt by an exponential increase in the cost of electricity and only being allowed to heat their homes with electric heat. I can barely afford the cost of electricity now. If the price quadrupled I'd have to stop using it completely. Probably I'd just move to one of the countries that doesn't believe in the AGW religion. I highly doubt the AGWers are ever going to be able to get a consensus from every government on the planet, and even if they do I bet a lot of governments won't bother to enforce the restrictions.
Are you seriously trying to argue that there has never been in the entire history of scientific inquiry a consensus which turned out to be wrong?
Is climatology even a science? It seems like none of their "experiments" have any controls. Are stock market predictions also a science? Do climatologists major in something called "climatology" in university?
The vast majority of people arguing that AGW is real don't even make scientific arguments. Their arguments are generally limited to Argument by Authority and work their way to Ad Hominem attacks.
I wish just once we would see references to actual temperature data and I don't mean just graphs. Graphs can be deceptive. I mean the raw data that is used to make the graphs. Because that's where the evidence is. In that data. But it's never trotted out. If the anti-AGW people really want to convince skeptics, really want to make their case to rational people then they cannot ask for faith or claim that consensus = truth. Those are religious arguments. Not scientific ones. They have to actually go through each step. From the specific temperature readings to the conclusion that the pattern is non-repeating and 100% caused by combustion. And claiming that skeptics are too stupid to understand the evidence is always a great way to 'win' your argument.
The conclusions they have come to, as a massive consensus, is that AGW is very much real and significant, and cannot be explained away by natural means
How did they reach that conclusion? I don't let other people do my thinking for me. I want to see their data and trace their chain of logic. It's especially important when politics are involved. Anyone who doesn't do that doesn't have a leg to stand on in the debate.
The earth was the centre of the universe - but scientists proved that wrong
Eventually it was shown to be an incorrect model. Strangely enough the scientific data more closely matched Ptolemy's epicycle geocentric model than Copernicus's heliocentric model. For a while at least.
The earth was created by $DEITY - is not in the least bit an area of scientific enquiry
I believe that astrophysicists do consider themselves to be scientists. Of course I don't disagree that "god did it" is not science.
Any scientist who "knows that they are right" is not much of a scientist. There is no such thing as certainty in science. Well except of course for AGW which is literally impossible to deny. That's why we deniers are clinically insane and should probably be locked up or exterminated. For our own good of course.
This debate has become too politicized. I'd like to see the raw data. Do you have a link to the actual temperatures measured at specific stations over a long period of time? Also how do explain the downward trends? Surely if we are constantly increasing the amount of CO2 we should see a steady upward trend as the greenhouse effect does its work. I would think you'd have to have some explanation as to why the most convincing graph includes such long cooling trends.
So scientific truth is determined by taking a vote. Riight. As someone else pointed out you have just caused a great victory against atheism and in favor of religionists everywhere.
1. I think you are misinterpreting Kuhn.
2. Kuhn is not perfect. He is quite capable of being wrong.
I'm not sure that Kuhn was arguing that paradigm shifts were how science should be conducted, but rather that that it's just something that happens from time to time. I believe it is supposed to show that scientists are not 100% pure seekers of truth. That they can be affected by politics and bias. Taking a vote never leads to the truth. Only the scientific experiment can do that. If you're lucky.
It's pretty difficult to be against fusion power. This denier would be on board with that. I'd even be fine with more nuclear power plants. Yes. Even in my backyard. I like radiation.
Actually I think any anti-AGW person who does not like nuclear fission power because it is too risky or dangerous is a huge hypocrite. After all, they claim to believe that we are all going to die if we don't stop burning stuff. And soon. What's the risk of a Chernobyl or Fukushima or Three Mile Island compared to that? Certain death vs. only a chance of death.
Well I don't disagree with you there. Burning pretty much anything causes harm to the environment and coal is particularly bad in that respect. However it does allow cheap electricity that poor people can afford to actually use. Most other schemes might be able to supply power to rich people, but it would have a hard time giving electricity to the masses. I can barely afford electricity now. It's a major portion of my monthly budget. I can't imagine how much non-combustion methods of electricity generation would cost. It wouldn't be cheap.
Nuclear power is one possible solution. Still more expensive than coal, but it doesn't require combustion. I'm unsure as to whether anti AGW people are advocating going 100% nuclear though. Some do advocate that of course and you'd get no argument from me. You don't have to believe in AGW or be against AGW in order to think nuclear is a nice clean form of energy. And France seems to do pretty well with it. But basing the benefits of nuclear power on AGW is a bit of a stretch. Not everyone believes in it.