I'm not from the US but I understand what the US euphemisticaly calls a health "system" is farked. Your sig seems to describe the overall situation very succinctly.
Yep silver bullets are great for killing warewolves but that's about as far as it goes. Not saying we should stop looking into fusion but in my book it's only slightly more practical than "clean coal technology".
Wind has also come a fair way in the 50yrs I have been goofing off on this planet mainly due to much smaller and lighter turbines for the same output, also better materials and designs for blades. Pity about the intragience on nukes, pebble bed reactors look great on paper.
I agree, unfortunately they are an indeed an indicator of power. Nukes work using the second ammendment principle, ie: wave it around and others will back off. It has worked very well for Pakistan since they obtained them in the 90's and they now have ~100. Looking over the other side of the political fence, Israel has ~200. When everyone has them they become less of an indicator of superior power and more like a mexican stand off (MAD doctrine) - we all know how that turned out in Reservoir Dogs.
PS: Just in case you were serious about the butterflies. Yes chaos is a problem with numerical analysis (re: the three body problem in Newtonian gravity). It does make weather 'unpredictable' on time scales longer than a week or so and that is how it was discovered in the first place. However in the case of climate the time scale is in the order of centuries/millenia, which comes back to what you were saying about levels of certainty in all models, even Newton's.
In otherwords: Assuming pressure is constant, I can't tell where the first bubbles will appear when I boil a kettle but I can tell what the temprature of the water will be when they do.
I see the humour in your post but who says these campanies are failing? Just because car makers are getting a free ride so that auto-workers do not become angry pennyless voters doesn't mean that government infrastructure investment falls into the "rewarding failure" category.
I'm not a scientist, unless computer scientist counts. If scientists follow the scientific method then by default "group think" is minimised as much as humanly possible. Many scientists take it for granted that people undersatnd this but I tend to agree with Sagan, Dawkins and others in that the philosophy of science is not mentioned at school let alone taught. As a personal anecdote I dropped out of HS in '76 and gained a BSc in '91, in both cases science was taught as if it were a dictionary of factoids that we can pick and choose from to suit our needs. Oddly enough the way I became aware of skepticisims central role in science was by reading a small book written by a magician in the early 80's. Of course the problem with communicating this to the public is that you can end up looking like a humourless obsessive compulsive (re: Dawkins and Randi).
"I remain skeptic but the only thing I know is that I do not know."
Yep, the Universe is mainly hydrogen and ignorance, and we can't be certain about the hydrogen.
Not sure I can parse your comment but I noticed you had a long thread with someone in my post on bushfires. I agree with the thrust of your argument in that thread but would just like to point out that gravity is indeed used in climate models to simulate atmospheric pressure amoung other things (string theory, not so much;).
I like the way you think in that thread, had I seen it in time I would have chipped in with the gravity thing and also pointed out that the theory behind the rising acidity in the oceans has nothing to do with acid rain (sulphuric acid) but it does have alot to do with C02, (carbonic acid, H2CO3 = H2O + CO2). It goes without saying that burning coal emmits both sulphur and CO2 - whoops I just said it!:)
Many people think that climate models are a some sort of excell spreadsheet where scientists twiddle numbers until things come out the way Al Gore wants them to. If you're interested have a look at some of my other comments in this thread and you will find some ammunition to dispel this misconception. OTOH I realise I may be "telling you how to suck eggs" and you may already understand chemistry/physics and they way they are used in finite element models to simulate climate.
"You're obviously a true believer and as such beyond reason."
There is a phycological phenomena called "projection" and that comment would seem to indicate you are suffering from it, the good news is it can be treated with a heathly dose of self-skepticisim.
You failed miserably to agrue the science, you did not comment on the NAS testimony I pointed to, and now you send me a political hit piece from the "freerepublic". Take a good look at your link, do you see any links to references, sources, papers, even other opinions? - Ask yourself why not? Ask yourself why I haven't answered with a similar hit piece from a left-wing rag or some drivel from greenpeace?
If you don't understand even the basics of the science and are unwilling to look at contra-evidence then what's the point arguing about the politics surrounding it? Do you know what the definition of scientific skepticisim is? - Do you have a methodology that we could use to determine what the science actually says, or have you just made up your mind that the "freerepublic" has all the answers and anyone who disagrees with that page full of conspiracy theories is "beyond reason"?
While you mull that over ask yourself a political question that a genuine skeptic might ask: The basic findings of the IPCC are accepted by the scientific institutions of some 300 odd nations, the entire spectum of politics is represented by those institutions, do you not find this strange if, as your link says, it's all an "Al Gore scam"?
By the way if you want to label me a socialist go right ahead and make another mistake. I'm no more interested in political dogma than I'm interested in religious dogma (same thing really - ie: someone has all the answers). Contemplate my sig, practice some self skepticisim and unlock the political cage you are in, the world will suddenly make a whole lot more sense.
Fair point but consider in the UK you can go one town away and they speak a different language! What's worse is everyone claims to speak english, well except for the Irish, Scots and Welsh.
We can see the olympics in China. Not that I think this idea has a snowball's chance in hell but a bit of rain-making in SE Australia would be usefull.
Ok, you have some fair and reasonable points and I think you should follow your skepticisim to where ever it leads, what follows is mainly just my opinion. OTOH I am quite capable of backing up the assertions I make if you want to talk specifics...
"Is there no way to eliminate this ethical dilemma of monetary motivators in science? Should we not work to eliminate it?
Unfortunately when large sums of money (or fame) are concerned, no (re:tabacco "scientists"). However we can work towards limiting it's effects by eductaing ourselves on the basic issues and insisting on peer-reviewed publications including the data sources that goes with them. As in the case of tabacco "scientists, science will eventually expose the psudeo-skeptics for what they are.
I see skeptics as well as scientists with real opposing theories as a good thing in any type of science.
Skepticisim is the foundation apon which science is built. IMHO the term "non-skeptical scientist" is an oxymoron. I am usually very careful about labeling someone a skeptic as opposed to a psudeo-skeptic, I believe from your responses that, like myself, you are the former.
"I just fear that this science is getting used by political agendas and has accumulated an almost religious following of zealots."
Yes, there are "alarmists" of both the ecological and economic variety, educating oneself on the science and proposed solutions will assist in spotting them. I think an international treaty implementing a cap and trade system is the best solution I have heard because it's basic mechanisim is easy to understand and firmly based in the "free market philosophy".
"I also distrust statistical data and computer models that are based on such data, especially when the data is retrieved from questionable sources"
Unfortunately there is no other way to analyse historical records and proxies other than with statistics and even if you get the stats right you then need to justify any extrapolation you make from them by other means, I belive the IPCC reports do this in a convincing manner. Computer models used for investigating the climate do not rely on statistics they use finite element analysis a method that is invaluable in a huge range of subjects, particularly fluid dynamics (ie: atmosphere and oceans are both treated as "fluids"). A nice visualization of a baseline for such a model from Japan's "Earth Simulator" can be seen here (scroll down past the still picture to see the embeded movie).
"My argument is mainly that the "skeptics" as you call them (I prefer to call them scientists with opposing theories) are not getting the funding and that this is anti-scientific."
I agree it would be unscientific if it were true. My argument is that these so called unfunded theories have already been debunked and that the "debate" in the mass-media is in the main manafactured by certain opinion columnists. I'm not saying there isn't a huge amount of genuine skeptical argument about things such as clouds, areosols, biological feedbacks, the behaviour of glaciers, ice shelves, etc, etc. However this does not change what is already known, what it does over the long term is narrow the error bars. In fact many of the people/institutions on both sides of those genuine debates are the same people/institutions the IPCC draws it's evidence from and none of them dispute the much maligned "consensus", although many of them sorely wish they could.
"The Global Warming crowd has been saying the same thing about the scientist on the opposite side of the issue for years, so it is only right that these scientists are questioned on their ethics as well now that they are receiving the government grants.
"
Talking about grants and "pro-warming agendas" is simply dragging around red-herrings since both "sides" recieve grants and both have their political backers (including your own political posts).
Science is based on evidence not "facts" and as the saying goes, "extrodinary claims require extrodinary evidence". I have watched the genuine skeptical arguments fall one by one over the last 25+yrs (including many of my own) and I now understand the subject in considerable depth. So let's start with something basic, do you have any credible evidence that disputes the "consensus", ie: Evidence that...
1. The Earth is not warming.
2. Humans are not resposnisble for the majority of the observed warming.
3. The consequences of AGW will not get worse the longer we ignore it.
And remeber that the evidence needs to avoid political trolling and be at least as extrodinary as the evidence for AGW that goes all the way back to Fourier in the 1820's. Since the scientific institutions of some 300 odd nations that represent the full spectrum of politics support the basic findings of the IPCC I'm not sure where you will find such evidence, but I'm willing to listen if you have something, anything?
If you don't have anything then we can talk about politics, ie: what solutions heve been proposed, what are the costs to the economy, who would/wouldn't benifit from them, etc.
"In science, accuracy is a big deal. Otherwise we are just following a hunch, and that is fine in the beginning, but to base political and social policy on a hunch is too much to ask."
I agree, the best science available says with 95% certainty that humans are resposible for greater than 50% of the observed warming. Who's political hunch would we be following if we continued with BAU?
"Oh? Already forgot how the used October data from Siberia for the November average temp calculation "by mistake". How about the infamous hockey stick graph that totally ignored the medieval warming period? And then there was the Alaska size part of the ocean that was supposed to be open water but when you looked at the raw satellite image was covered in ice?...and the list goes on..."
It's your perogative to keep repeating the endless list of misinformation from George Will, Andrew Bolt, Dr Ball and other like-minded opinion columnists. However the misinformation you have been fed about Mann is based on the NAS testimony to the senate which if you actually read it does not debunk Mann's hockey stick. Mann did not ignore the MWP, what he said was that the world was now warmer than the during the MWP, the overwhelming majority of published reconstructions agree with him.
The meat of the testiomony: "We also question some of the statistical choices made in the original papers by Dr. Mann and his colleagues. However, our reservations with some aspects of the original papers by Mann et al. should not be construed as evidence that our committee does not believe that the climate is warming, and will continue to warm, as a result of human activities.
Does your bullshit detector not sound an alarm when none of the psuedo-skeptics that have misinformed you ever point to the sources they base their claims on. Does your bullshit detector not go off the scale when it hears the senate wanted to "verify the claims" of one scientific paper, as if it were the only thing that AGW is based on? How about you and others who believe George and his mates actually look at the accuracy of Mann's 1998 forceasts rather than simply regurgitating the bullshit that the opinion columns spoon feed you.
They will just use the same old argument they already use. "while the data is not complete, we cannot wait until it is complete or it will be too late to act."
Slashdot Mirror
Mine has 1400 watts written on it in big letters. Amps X Volts = Watts
I'm not from the US but I understand what the US euphemisticaly calls a health "system" is farked. Your sig seems to describe the overall situation very succinctly.
Heh, the first time I heard about Java I thought, "Hey, that's like PCODE from the '70's"
When I started HS calculators hadn't been invented - now get off my lawn.
So did you learn any calculus?
Yep silver bullets are great for killing warewolves but that's about as far as it goes. Not saying we should stop looking into fusion but in my book it's only slightly more practical than "clean coal technology".
Wind has also come a fair way in the 50yrs I have been goofing off on this planet mainly due to much smaller and lighter turbines for the same output, also better materials and designs for blades. Pity about the intragience on nukes, pebble bed reactors look great on paper.
How is the parent a troll?
I agree, unfortunately they are an indeed an indicator of power. Nukes work using the second ammendment principle, ie: wave it around and others will back off. It has worked very well for Pakistan since they obtained them in the 90's and they now have ~100. Looking over the other side of the political fence, Israel has ~200. When everyone has them they become less of an indicator of superior power and more like a mexican stand off (MAD doctrine) - we all know how that turned out in Reservoir Dogs.
PS: Just in case you were serious about the butterflies. Yes chaos is a problem with numerical analysis (re: the three body problem in Newtonian gravity). It does make weather 'unpredictable' on time scales longer than a week or so and that is how it was discovered in the first place. However in the case of climate the time scale is in the order of centuries/millenia, which comes back to what you were saying about levels of certainty in all models, even Newton's.
In otherwords: Assuming pressure is constant, I can't tell where the first bubbles will appear when I boil a kettle but I can tell what the temprature of the water will be when they do.
I see the humour in your post but who says these campanies are failing? Just because car makers are getting a free ride so that auto-workers do not become angry pennyless voters doesn't mean that government infrastructure investment falls into the "rewarding failure" category.
I'm not a scientist, unless computer scientist counts. If scientists follow the scientific method then by default "group think" is minimised as much as humanly possible. Many scientists take it for granted that people undersatnd this but I tend to agree with Sagan, Dawkins and others in that the philosophy of science is not mentioned at school let alone taught. As a personal anecdote I dropped out of HS in '76 and gained a BSc in '91, in both cases science was taught as if it were a dictionary of factoids that we can pick and choose from to suit our needs. Oddly enough the way I became aware of skepticisims central role in science was by reading a small book written by a magician in the early 80's. Of course the problem with communicating this to the public is that you can end up looking like a humourless obsessive compulsive (re: Dawkins and Randi).
"I remain skeptic but the only thing I know is that I do not know."
Yep, the Universe is mainly hydrogen and ignorance, and we can't be certain about the hydrogen.
Perhaps we should pull their wings off, spherical butterfies would be much easier to model. ;)
Not sure I can parse your comment but I noticed you had a long thread with someone in my post on bushfires. I agree with the thrust of your argument in that thread but would just like to point out that gravity is indeed used in climate models to simulate atmospheric pressure amoung other things (string theory, not so much ;).
:)
I like the way you think in that thread, had I seen it in time I would have chipped in with the gravity thing and also pointed out that the theory behind the rising acidity in the oceans has nothing to do with acid rain (sulphuric acid) but it does have alot to do with C02, (carbonic acid, H2CO3 = H2O + CO2). It goes without saying that burning coal emmits both sulphur and CO2 - whoops I just said it!
Many people think that climate models are a some sort of excell spreadsheet where scientists twiddle numbers until things come out the way Al Gore wants them to. If you're interested have a look at some of my other comments in this thread and you will find some ammunition to dispel this misconception. OTOH I realise I may be "telling you how to suck eggs" and you may already understand chemistry/physics and they way they are used in finite element models to simulate climate.
"You're obviously a true believer and as such beyond reason."
There is a phycological phenomena called "projection" and that comment would seem to indicate you are suffering from it, the good news is it can be treated with a heathly dose of self-skepticisim.
You failed miserably to agrue the science, you did not comment on the NAS testimony I pointed to, and now you send me a political hit piece from the "freerepublic". Take a good look at your link, do you see any links to references, sources, papers, even other opinions? - Ask yourself why not? Ask yourself why I haven't answered with a similar hit piece from a left-wing rag or some drivel from greenpeace?
If you don't understand even the basics of the science and are unwilling to look at contra-evidence then what's the point arguing about the politics surrounding it? Do you know what the definition of scientific skepticisim is? - Do you have a methodology that we could use to determine what the science actually says, or have you just made up your mind that the "freerepublic" has all the answers and anyone who disagrees with that page full of conspiracy theories is "beyond reason"?
While you mull that over ask yourself a political question that a genuine skeptic might ask: The basic findings of the IPCC are accepted by the scientific institutions of some 300 odd nations, the entire spectum of politics is represented by those institutions, do you not find this strange if, as your link says, it's all an "Al Gore scam"?
By the way if you want to label me a socialist go right ahead and make another mistake. I'm no more interested in political dogma than I'm interested in religious dogma (same thing really - ie: someone has all the answers). Contemplate my sig, practice some self skepticisim and unlock the political cage you are in, the world will suddenly make a whole lot more sense.
Balmer is a /. subscriber, he got to see it early...
Fair point but consider in the UK you can go one town away and they speak a different language! What's worse is everyone claims to speak english, well except for the Irish, Scots and Welsh.
We can see the olympics in China. Not that I think this idea has a snowball's chance in hell but a bit of rain-making in SE Australia would be usefull.
Ok, you have some fair and reasonable points and I think you should follow your skepticisim to where ever it leads, what follows is mainly just my opinion. OTOH I am quite capable of backing up the assertions I make if you want to talk specifics...
"Is there no way to eliminate this ethical dilemma of monetary motivators in science? Should we not work to eliminate it?
Unfortunately when large sums of money (or fame) are concerned, no (re:tabacco "scientists"). However we can work towards limiting it's effects by eductaing ourselves on the basic issues and insisting on peer-reviewed publications including the data sources that goes with them. As in the case of tabacco "scientists, science will eventually expose the psudeo-skeptics for what they are.
I see skeptics as well as scientists with real opposing theories as a good thing in any type of science.
Skepticisim is the foundation apon which science is built. IMHO the term "non-skeptical scientist" is an oxymoron. I am usually very careful about labeling someone a skeptic as opposed to a psudeo-skeptic, I believe from your responses that, like myself, you are the former.
"I just fear that this science is getting used by political agendas and has accumulated an almost religious following of zealots."
Yes, there are "alarmists" of both the ecological and economic variety, educating oneself on the science and proposed solutions will assist in spotting them. I think an international treaty implementing a cap and trade system is the best solution I have heard because it's basic mechanisim is easy to understand and firmly based in the "free market philosophy".
"I also distrust statistical data and computer models that are based on such data, especially when the data is retrieved from questionable sources"
Unfortunately there is no other way to analyse historical records and proxies other than with statistics and even if you get the stats right you then need to justify any extrapolation you make from them by other means, I belive the IPCC reports do this in a convincing manner. Computer models used for investigating the climate do not rely on statistics they use finite element analysis a method that is invaluable in a huge range of subjects, particularly fluid dynamics (ie: atmosphere and oceans are both treated as "fluids"). A nice visualization of a baseline for such a model from Japan's "Earth Simulator" can be seen here (scroll down past the still picture to see the embeded movie).
"My argument is mainly that the "skeptics" as you call them (I prefer to call them scientists with opposing theories) are not getting the funding and that this is anti-scientific."
I agree it would be unscientific if it were true. My argument is that these so called unfunded theories have already been debunked and that the "debate" in the mass-media is in the main manafactured by certain opinion columnists. I'm not saying there isn't a huge amount of genuine skeptical argument about things such as clouds, areosols, biological feedbacks, the behaviour of glaciers, ice shelves, etc, etc. However this does not change what is already known, what it does over the long term is narrow the error bars. In fact many of the people/institutions on both sides of those genuine debates are the same people/institutions the IPCC draws it's evidence from and none of them dispute the much maligned "consensus", although many of them sorely wish they could.
"The Global Warming crowd has been saying the same thing about the scientist on the opposite side of the issue for years, so it is only right that these scientists are questioned on their ethics as well now that they are receiving the government grants. "
Talking about grants and "pro-warming agendas" is simply dragging around red-herrings since both "sides" recieve grants and both have their political backers (including your own political posts).
Science is based on evidence not "facts" and as the saying goes, "extrodinary claims require extrodinary evidence". I have watched the genuine skeptical arguments fall one by one over the last 25+yrs (including many of my own) and I now understand the subject in considerable depth. So let's start with something basic, do you have any credible evidence that disputes the "consensus", ie: Evidence that...
1. The Earth is not warming.
2. Humans are not resposnisble for the majority of the observed warming.
3. The consequences of AGW will not get worse the longer we ignore it.
And remeber that the evidence needs to avoid political trolling and be at least as extrodinary as the evidence for AGW that goes all the way back to Fourier in the 1820's. Since the scientific institutions of some 300 odd nations that represent the full spectrum of politics support the basic findings of the IPCC I'm not sure where you will find such evidence, but I'm willing to listen if you have something, anything?
If you don't have anything then we can talk about politics, ie: what solutions heve been proposed, what are the costs to the economy, who would/wouldn't benifit from them, etc.
"In science, accuracy is a big deal. Otherwise we are just following a hunch, and that is fine in the beginning, but to base political and social policy on a hunch is too much to ask."
I agree, the best science available says with 95% certainty that humans are resposible for greater than 50% of the observed warming. Who's political hunch would we be following if we continued with BAU?
I see you are unwilling to look at evidence that refutes your dogma, please carry on making a fool of yourself.
While the CEO speak in the video makes me want to puke, I don't see how the word "manage" implies a global conspiracy to...err...to do what?
debunk Mann's hockey stick
"Oh? Already forgot how the used October data from Siberia for the November average temp calculation "by mistake". How about the infamous hockey stick graph that totally ignored the medieval warming period? And then there was the Alaska size part of the ocean that was supposed to be open water but when you looked at the raw satellite image was covered in ice? ...and the list goes on..."
It's your perogative to keep repeating the endless list of misinformation from George Will, Andrew Bolt, Dr Ball and other like-minded opinion columnists. However the misinformation you have been fed about Mann is based on the NAS testimony to the senate which if you actually read it does not debunk Mann's hockey stick. Mann did not ignore the MWP, what he said was that the world was now warmer than the during the MWP, the overwhelming majority of published reconstructions agree with him.
The meat of the testiomony: "We also question some of the statistical choices made in the original papers by Dr. Mann and his colleagues. However, our reservations with some aspects of the original papers by Mann et al. should not be construed as evidence that our committee does not believe that the climate is warming, and will continue to warm, as a result of human activities.
Does your bullshit detector not sound an alarm when none of the psuedo-skeptics that have misinformed you ever point to the sources they base their claims on. Does your bullshit detector not go off the scale when it hears the senate wanted to "verify the claims" of one scientific paper, as if it were the only thing that AGW is based on? How about you and others who believe George and his mates actually look at the accuracy of Mann's 1998 forceasts rather than simply regurgitating the bullshit that the opinion columns spoon feed you.
They will just use the same old argument they already use. "while the data is not complete, we cannot wait until it is complete or it will be too late to act."
Imperfect does not mean useless.