I mean if you say it works for IT why not health care? Or how about food prices, they too are still going up even though there are many foods imported from all over the world. I guess your argument would be that they would be even higher if everything was left to grow only in the U.S. and sold in the U.S.
I think they would be higher. Food prices will go up because of "facts on the ground". It is already heavily subsided, and most farmers are losing money, to the middle-men (super markets).
Health care prices are not high because of "facts on the ground". Insurance players have a captive market and get pick and choose who to fleece and reject.
The rules favour the status-quo, and laissez-faire economics favours those who can exert leverage and exploit externalities and barriers to entry. The american health care system is corporate welfare already -- and true conservatives would be concerned about that, and looking at what structural issues allow this industry to exploit the market place. Efficient markets come from low barriers to entry, and tough regulations that prevent companies from exploiting externalities.
The powerful (business leaders/politicians) cannot make nuclear bombs go away by changing the laws of nuclear warfare. On the other hand, if a coalitions of large IT companies decided to lobby for patent reform, then will probably get whatever laws they want.
Power structures serve the powerful first. Microsoft wants the patent regime, but it doesn't want situations like this. When the powerful get shafted, then we can expect patent reform.
With any luck major websites will simply stop supporting IE6, no matter how loudly its users complain.
Not if they are corporate users paying your bills. IE6 will be around so long as middle management don't have the balls to actually modernise their infrastructure.
All those annoying nerds trying to get them to make more standards compliant websites 5 years ago have already moved on to better jobs. They just dumped the tangled mess of IE6 dependent html-karapware and vacuous developers that worked on it.
In such a situation, it is easier for a big corporation to say "we use IE6, so your systems must support IE6". I know, because I was there, and then I fled.
There's that circle again, that you love to spin around so much. Whee!
Conspiracy theories are circular. Evidence works in a straight line.
Yes, here's one example [eastangliaemails.com].
Peer review can be adversarial. The submitters work was not destroyed. They could have published on the internet, or rather, they probably sent their publication to a trade journal such as Energy & Environment. Hardly sinister.
What happened to the scientific method here where someone else challenges a theory and you explain why the challenge is wrong using facts, instead of Ad-Hominem attacks?
There was scientific consensus in 1979. You cannot make an evidence based (straight-line) argument against AGW, because none exists. I *always* challenge skeptics to produce one, but once their references show the emptiness of their arguments, then out come the conspiracy theories.
All "skeptics" have is circular conspiracy.
Don't believe me? Fine a "top 10" argument list for why AGW is not happening, and I'll happily tear it apart, in a LOGICAL and EVIDENCE based discussion.
If that were true, then you'd be able to find perfectly good articles were "censored". Perhaps you think that the CRU had the scientists bumped off and their hard disks melted. That would explain why there is no evidence, right? The scientists, the papers, EVERYTHING is gone.
Either that, or you'd be able to back up your accusation.
Let me guess. You have no idea what papers the CRU never published, AND YOU COULDN'T FIND THEM IF YOU TRIED.
Remember, you are not paranoid if everyone really is against you.
I suspect you wont watch the documentary, even though it is very good.
He regulated money and he failed miserably.
History shows that he fought tenaciously against regulation.
So using him as an example really means nothing, just because he said he was a Libertarian it's by his actions he should be judged.
Same as above. By his actions, he fought against regulation. Very effectively as well.
And working for the money regulator AKA the US Federal Reserve pulling strings to alter the economy as he saw fit speaks volumes to what he truly is and believes.
He wrote about that. Specifically, he said that he would use his position to do as little regulation as possible -- basically dismantle regulation. That is precisely what he did.
The reason for the recent financial collapse stems directly from the deregulatory actions of Alan Greenspan, as a political heavy-weight in effecting deregulation.
After the collapse, Greenspan felt humiliated, and retreated from public life. He did have the balls to flatly declare that he was wrong about deregulation, and that his libertarian world-view was flawed. I respect him for doing that. Very brave to cause so much harm, and then say you were wrong.
Using intelligence to moderate greed is not the same a communism.
Lassez-faire is not an ultimate truth. If it were, then we would have private police, unregulated tobacco, and the supermarket could sell you anything that looked like meat without any regulations at all. That is a recipe for a crime and public health disaster.
The question is not the removal of all regulations, but understanding when regulations are needed. History is *full* of examples of the evils of unregulated markets. Even Alan Greenspan as backed off from that ideology -- and he was the "wizard", and chief high-priest of that position -- and an extraordinarily intelligent man.
Human beings are more than just selfish greedy individuals. We are capable or more than that -- and that is NOT communism OR socialism.
Our economic system is predicated on perpetual growth -- and business interests have talked about IP as the new "gold" for decades. It is not an evil conspiracy, but rather, politicians and business leaders believe that they need to enact these laws for our system to continue to grow. It's not just the RIAA and MPAA, it's also the big phama and agricultural firms.
Personally, I think it is bullocks dreamed up by people who never created art in their entire lives. Nobody is going to pay for "IP" when they need food on the table. Furthermore, these laws will be used to silence the critics of political interests.
It is precisely the free exchange of ideas that creates intellectual wealth, which is why these laws are fundamentally counter-productive in their goals.
Then on supply of a list of 450 with a pretty unambiguous title describing the contents of the list,
The list is not what is says it is. It includes 80 odd papers from non-peer reviewed trade journals. It is padded with papers which are pro-AGW. It includes old papers about technical issues which have since been clarified.
There *is* a way to convince me.
Provide a scientific argument against AGW.
There is no way to convince you. In fact, pointing out the astroturf nature of the list has done nothing to shake your faith.
I suspect that YOU FIND IT TOO THREATENING to investigate the list further.
No skeptic can *explain* to me why AGW isn't happening. That's because their arguments are devoid of content. JUST LIKE THE "LIST" OF 450.
I don't care what it contains... you asked for a list of peer reviewed papers, I gave you a list of 450 with the general theme of skepticism.
I have too much to do to look at this right now, however, I noted that Roger Pielke Jr objects to his papers being considered “skeptic”. He has 21 papers in the list, so that makes only 429 left. Pielke Jr is a frequent critic of AGW science, however, he doesn’t believe that climate change is not man made. Because he has read the literature. See here.
I’d like to seriously consider an honest enquiry here. If we choose 10 papers at random, and none of them are really skeptic-friendly, what would that mean about the list. Hypothetically speaking.
If you are genuinely interested, then I’ll send you the results of my investigation. However, first I’d like to get something from you in return.
How many out of the 10 papers (you can choose the random numbers if you like) are required for the list to be valid. 9, 8, 5? What is you threshold.
Furthermore, if the list turns out to be bogus, and you can find no other list, and no resource that lists non-refuted skeptic science, then, hypothetically speaking, what does that mean about the skeptic arguments?
Again, I repeat, I am being genuine here, since I believe that we are both on the threshold of a discovery. Either the 450 papers (429) is legit, and I will look further in skeptics claims of conspiracy, or the 450 papers is a fabrication, in which case, you’d have to consider scientists claims of a skeptic conspiracy.
Are you open to that honest intellectual skepticism?
see government has siezed of an unproven hypothesis
The government is scared @#$less of it, and would probably wish it never happened. Because doing the right thing involves passing laws that will be deeply unpopular.
And it is proven -- you cannot dismiss all that scientific evidence with a hand-wave conspiracy. Try to find a top-ten skeptics argument website, which contains arguments that have not already been refuted. The best skeptics have is conspiracy theories, which is completely lame.
You know, this is *exactly* what a skeptic in any field has to deal with.
When I get a moment, I'll look at the first paper as well. I suspect that it wont take long to put it in context -- but the proof of the pudding is in the tasting.
Congrats on producing the list of 450 papers -- I've never seen it before. I suspect that it will not prove to be what it seems, but will not make up my mind until I have looked into it further.
Oh man, you have no idea what is in that list do you. I haven't read over everything there, not by a long shot, but I can say that it contains completely non-skeptical papers, such as Khilyuk and Chillanger.
There are a few other signs that the list is not legit -- for a starters, some of these papers will have rebutals. In any case, 450 papers really is not that many.
But we can test this with evidence. Pick 10 papers at random from this list, and lets see how many are actually skeptic papers that have not been debunk by merit of argument.
You must understand, that the whole skeptic argument rests on the principle that nobody would actually bother to look at the sources they reference. And the evidence for that can be found in reading the references.
Oh ffs, I could go and research a list in 5 minutes.
Ou contraire. You couldn't. Try and see.
To be fair, this is what constitutes a valid researcher:
They publish papers in peer review journals, and respond to criticism on those papers -- best. No skeptics do this.
They publish papers in peer review journals, but don't bother to defend them when problems are pointed out. 2nd best. There are a few of these, and a spattering of papers.
If someone publishes non-reviewed research, then that is also fine. Just like peer-reviewed research, non-reviewed research can be impugned based on its flaws. If said researchers do not respond to criticism of their papers, then we can safely not take then seriously. Especially of the papers contain previously debunked theories and ideas, without presenting counter-arguments to debunking.
Go on. Find some sources and categorise them. Afterall, the skeptics case is made, so it should only take 5 minutes =)
I'd settle for 500 years of accurate, precise (with an error no greater than 0.05C) temperature measurements from at least 5000 sites scattered reasonably uniformly over the globe.
Considering that CO2 levels will continue to rise for 1000 years afterwards -- we really will have missed a chance to build a sustainable economy. By analogy, you won't save the building from fire, because you want to measure exactly how hot the flame is, to within 0.5C, to prove that the house is really in danger.
In assessing certainty, one cannot simply pull number like 500, 5000 and 0.05C out of thin air. There is a confidence interval that goes with the measurement. Do you know what that confidence interval is? Didn't think so.
On the other hand, climate scientists *do* know what their confidence interval is. It is all in the ipcc reports. Ever read one? Didn't think so.
No, tree rings won't do. Nor will ice cores. Because we have less than 100 years of temperature measurements to calibrate them with.
I'd trust statistical techniques to assess the error range of proxies, over rules of thumb.
Oh, and I'd like to be able to see the raw data, the massaged data, and the formulae used to do the massaging. Note that the CRU people can't or won't provide the raw data - either of which is a big warning sign in my book.
The CRU people provide almost all of the data, except for date they cannot provide because it is not theirs to provide. That is hardly a conspiracy. In fact, they are simply obeying the law. The vast majority of the data is here. You can also find tonnes of raw data and source code here
I say all of this with no expectation of having convinced you of anything. Try to find a "top 10" skeptic arguments. No such resource exists, because wild charges of conspiracy is the best evidence that skeptics have. If you fail to find a top 10, that actually contains sound arguments -- would that be sufficient to cast doubt on your AGW opinion, or will the burden of proof just shift further away?
Doubt is good. Healthy skepticism is a sign of maturity and intellectual involvement.
Problem is that most skeptics will not put their money where their mouth is -- and actually participate in the scientific debate. Instead, we get a bunch of unsubstantiated and contradictory theories appearing on websites. Theories that have already been discredited, and circular references that often lead no where.
I believe in AGW, because I have spent the time to assess the evidence, and I have some understanding of scientific philosophy. If someone wants to turn me into a skeptic, then they will have to make an evidence based argument. No such argument exists, and I have looked long and hard. I have also challenged numerous skeptics to produce one. However, once the argument has been discredited, they all start talking about conspiracies. Somehow, I'm unreasonable because I cannot see this obvious "truth". And then there is the projections -- like calling science a religion. Am I of the church of science because I refuse to accept a conspiracy theory at face value, but rather, will only accept evidence based arguments about the issues?
Skeptics presumably talk about "healthy skepticism", because of the way it makes them feel. They are not talking about any intellectual application of healthy skepticism.
and they just want to get their own back on those people who could do it.
That seems a quite unfair. However, I do agree that a lack of good scientific journalism is a problem.
But my main beef with journalists, is that they should be far more savvy about the politics that is going on around the AGW debate. Sometimes I get the impression that it's just a job, and they really do the minimum to get the details right.
Slashdot Mirror
Surely you mean Stephen Harper. (shudders.)
Actually, a major reason the Brits keep the monarchy around is that it makes about as much in tourism as it costs them. It's not just silly tradition.
Life would be so meaningless without money, eh?
I mean if you say it works for IT why not health care? Or how about food prices, they too are still going up even though there are many foods imported from all over the world. I guess your argument would be that they would be even higher if everything was left to grow only in the U.S. and sold in the U.S.
I think they would be higher. Food prices will go up because of "facts on the ground". It is already heavily subsided, and most farmers are losing money, to the middle-men (super markets).
Health care prices are not high because of "facts on the ground". Insurance players have a captive market and get pick and choose who to fleece and reject.
The rules favour the status-quo, and laissez-faire economics favours those who can exert leverage and exploit externalities and barriers to entry. The american health care system is corporate welfare already -- and true conservatives would be concerned about that, and looking at what structural issues allow this industry to exploit the market place. Efficient markets come from low barriers to entry, and tough regulations that prevent companies from exploiting externalities.
The powerful (business leaders/politicians) cannot make nuclear bombs go away by changing the laws of nuclear warfare. On the other hand, if a coalitions of large IT companies decided to lobby for patent reform, then will probably get whatever laws they want.
Power structures serve the powerful first. Microsoft wants the patent regime, but it doesn't want situations like this. When the powerful get shafted, then we can expect patent reform.
With any luck major websites will simply stop supporting IE6, no matter how loudly its users complain.
Not if they are corporate users paying your bills. IE6 will be around so long as middle management don't have the balls to actually modernise their infrastructure.
All those annoying nerds trying to get them to make more standards compliant websites 5 years ago have already moved on to better jobs. They just dumped the tangled mess of IE6 dependent html-karapware and vacuous developers that worked on it.
In such a situation, it is easier for a big corporation to say "we use IE6, so your systems must support IE6". I know, because I was there, and then I fled.
There's that circle again, that you love to spin around so much. Whee!
Conspiracy theories are circular. Evidence works in a straight line.
Yes, here's one example [eastangliaemails.com].
Peer review can be adversarial. The submitters work was not destroyed. They could have published on the internet, or rather, they probably sent their publication to a trade journal such as Energy & Environment. Hardly sinister.
What happened to the scientific method here where someone else challenges a theory and you explain why the challenge is wrong using facts, instead of Ad-Hominem attacks?
This is what happened..
There was scientific consensus in 1979. You cannot make an evidence based (straight-line) argument against AGW, because none exists. I *always* challenge skeptics to produce one, but once their references show the emptiness of their arguments, then out come the conspiracy theories.
All "skeptics" have is circular conspiracy.
Don't believe me? Fine a "top 10" argument list for why AGW is not happening, and I'll happily tear it apart, in a LOGICAL and EVIDENCE based discussion.
The CRU made sure it was never published?
If that were true, then you'd be able to find perfectly good articles were "censored". Perhaps you think that the CRU had the scientists bumped off and their hard disks melted. That would explain why there is no evidence, right? The scientists, the papers, EVERYTHING is gone.
Either that, or you'd be able to back up your accusation.
Let me guess. You have no idea what papers the CRU never published, AND YOU COULDN'T FIND THEM IF YOU TRIED.
Remember, you are not paranoid if everyone really is against you.
Conroy isn't pulling a "card". He really believes what he says. Crazy times, eh?
I suspect you wont watch the documentary, even though it is very good.
He regulated money and he failed miserably.
History shows that he fought tenaciously against regulation.
So using him as an example really means nothing, just because he said he was a Libertarian it's by his actions he should be judged.
Same as above. By his actions, he fought against regulation. Very effectively as well.
And working for the money regulator AKA the US Federal Reserve pulling strings to alter the economy as he saw fit speaks volumes to what he truly is and believes.
He wrote about that. Specifically, he said that he would use his position to do as little regulation as possible -- basically dismantle regulation. That is precisely what he did.
The reason for the recent financial collapse stems directly from the deregulatory actions of Alan Greenspan, as a political heavy-weight in effecting deregulation.
After the collapse, Greenspan felt humiliated, and retreated from public life. He did have the balls to flatly declare that he was wrong about deregulation, and that his libertarian world-view was flawed. I respect him for doing that. Very brave to cause so much harm, and then say you were wrong.
See here for a history of Greenspan and regulation.
Who is going to shop at a supermarket that sold bad meat if the public is properly informed?
The problem with your argument is that there is such a thing as a captive market.
100 years ago, you could not buy sanitary meat. It was impossible. The government brought in regulations, and everyone celebrated.
Greed is an inherent part of human nature
So is intelligence.
Using intelligence to moderate greed is not the same a communism.
Lassez-faire is not an ultimate truth. If it were, then we would have private police, unregulated tobacco, and the supermarket could sell you anything that looked like meat without any regulations at all. That is a recipe for a crime and public health disaster.
The question is not the removal of all regulations, but understanding when regulations are needed. History is *full* of examples of the evils of unregulated markets. Even Alan Greenspan as backed off from that ideology -- and he was the "wizard", and chief high-priest of that position -- and an extraordinarily intelligent man.
Human beings are more than just selfish greedy individuals. We are capable or more than that -- and that is NOT communism OR socialism.
Our economic system is predicated on perpetual growth -- and business interests have talked about IP as the new "gold" for decades. It is not an evil conspiracy, but rather, politicians and business leaders believe that they need to enact these laws for our system to continue to grow. It's not just the RIAA and MPAA, it's also the big phama and agricultural firms.
Personally, I think it is bullocks dreamed up by people who never created art in their entire lives. Nobody is going to pay for "IP" when they need food on the table. Furthermore, these laws will be used to silence the critics of political interests.
It is precisely the free exchange of ideas that creates intellectual wealth, which is why these laws are fundamentally counter-productive in their goals.
Then on supply of a list of 450 with a pretty unambiguous title describing the contents of the list,
The list is not what is says it is. It includes 80 odd papers from non-peer reviewed trade journals. It is padded with papers which are pro-AGW. It includes old papers about technical issues which have since been clarified.
There *is* a way to convince me.
Provide a scientific argument against AGW.
There is no way to convince you. In fact, pointing out the astroturf nature of the list has done nothing to shake your faith.
I suspect that YOU FIND IT TOO THREATENING to investigate the list further.
No skeptic can *explain* to me why AGW isn't happening. That's because their arguments are devoid of content. JUST LIKE THE "LIST" OF 450.
I don't care what it contains ... you asked for a list of peer reviewed papers, I gave you a list of 450 with the general theme of skepticism.
I have too much to do to look at this right now, however, I noted that Roger Pielke Jr objects to his papers being considered “skeptic”. He has 21 papers in the list, so that makes only 429 left. Pielke Jr is a frequent critic of AGW science, however, he doesn’t believe that climate change is not man made. Because he has read the literature. See here.
I’d like to seriously consider an honest enquiry here. If we choose 10 papers at random, and none of them are really skeptic-friendly, what would that mean about the list. Hypothetically speaking.
If you are genuinely interested, then I’ll send you the results of my investigation. However, first I’d like to get something from you in return.
How many out of the 10 papers (you can choose the random numbers if you like) are required for the list to be valid. 9, 8, 5? What is you threshold.
Furthermore, if the list turns out to be bogus, and you can find no other list, and no resource that lists non-refuted skeptic science, then, hypothetically speaking, what does that mean about the skeptic arguments?
Again, I repeat, I am being genuine here, since I believe that we are both on the threshold of a discovery. Either the 450 papers (429) is legit, and I will look further in skeptics claims of conspiracy, or the 450 papers is a fabrication, in which case, you’d have to consider scientists claims of a skeptic conspiracy.
Are you open to that honest intellectual skepticism?
see government has siezed of an unproven hypothesis
The government is scared @#$less of it, and would probably wish it never happened. Because doing the right thing involves passing laws that will be deeply unpopular.
And it is proven -- you cannot dismiss all that scientific evidence with a hand-wave conspiracy. Try to find a top-ten skeptics argument website, which contains arguments that have not already been refuted. The best skeptics have is conspiracy theories, which is completely lame.
You know, this is *exactly* what a skeptic in any field has to deal with.
When I get a moment, I'll look at the first paper as well. I suspect that it wont take long to put it in context -- but the proof of the pudding is in the tasting.
Congrats on producing the list of 450 papers -- I've never seen it before. I suspect that it will not prove to be what it seems, but will not make up my mind until I have looked into it further.
That's my honest skepticism.
Oh man, you have no idea what is in that list do you. I haven't read over everything there, not by a long shot, but I can say that it contains completely non-skeptical papers, such as Khilyuk and Chillanger.
There are a few other signs that the list is not legit -- for a starters, some of these papers will have rebutals. In any case, 450 papers really is not that many.
But we can test this with evidence. Pick 10 papers at random from this list, and lets see how many are actually skeptic papers that have not been debunk by merit of argument.
You must understand, that the whole skeptic argument rests on the principle that nobody would actually bother to look at the sources they reference. And the evidence for that can be found in reading the references.
Ou contraire. You couldn't. Try and see.
To be fair, this is what constitutes a valid researcher:
Go on. Find some sources and categorise them. Afterall, the skeptics case is made, so it should only take 5 minutes =)
Typical. Ask a skeptic to produce something, and you get wild conspiracy theories.
Who are these "plenty of scientists", or were you just speaking without having thought this through.
If conspiracy is all you got, then that's is a pretty lame bet you're making on our childrens' future.
Plenty of scientists are making refutations of AGW every day, and after the East Anglia debacle, we all know what happens to dissenters.
Who?
I'd settle for 500 years of accurate, precise (with an error no greater than 0.05C) temperature measurements from at least 5000 sites scattered reasonably uniformly over the globe.
Considering that CO2 levels will continue to rise for 1000 years afterwards -- we really will have missed a chance to build a sustainable economy. By analogy, you won't save the building from fire, because you want to measure exactly how hot the flame is, to within 0.5C, to prove that the house is really in danger.
In assessing certainty, one cannot simply pull number like 500, 5000 and 0.05C out of thin air. There is a confidence interval that goes with the measurement. Do you know what that confidence interval is? Didn't think so.
On the other hand, climate scientists *do* know what their confidence interval is. It is all in the ipcc reports. Ever read one? Didn't think so.
No, tree rings won't do. Nor will ice cores. Because we have less than 100 years of temperature measurements to calibrate them with.
I'd trust statistical techniques to assess the error range of proxies, over rules of thumb.
Oh, and I'd like to be able to see the raw data, the massaged data, and the formulae used to do the massaging. Note that the CRU people can't or won't provide the raw data - either of which is a big warning sign in my book.
The CRU people provide almost all of the data, except for date they cannot provide because it is not theirs to provide. That is hardly a conspiracy. In fact, they are simply obeying the law. The vast majority of the data is here. You can also find tonnes of raw data and source code here
I say all of this with no expectation of having convinced you of anything. Try to find a "top 10" skeptic arguments. No such resource exists, because wild charges of conspiracy is the best evidence that skeptics have. If you fail to find a top 10, that actually contains sound arguments -- would that be sufficient to cast doubt on your AGW opinion, or will the burden of proof just shift further away?
Doubt is good. Healthy skepticism is a sign of maturity and intellectual involvement.
Problem is that most skeptics will not put their money where their mouth is -- and actually participate in the scientific debate. Instead, we get a bunch of unsubstantiated and contradictory theories appearing on websites. Theories that have already been discredited, and circular references that often lead no where.
I believe in AGW, because I have spent the time to assess the evidence, and I have some understanding of scientific philosophy. If someone wants to turn me into a skeptic, then they will have to make an evidence based argument. No such argument exists, and I have looked long and hard. I have also challenged numerous skeptics to produce one. However, once the argument has been discredited, they all start talking about conspiracies. Somehow, I'm unreasonable because I cannot see this obvious "truth". And then there is the projections -- like calling science a religion. Am I of the church of science because I refuse to accept a conspiracy theory at face value, but rather, will only accept evidence based arguments about the issues?
Skeptics presumably talk about "healthy skepticism", because of the way it makes them feel. They are not talking about any intellectual application of healthy skepticism.
and they just want to get their own back on those people who could do it.
That seems a quite unfair. However, I do agree that a lack of good scientific journalism is a problem.
But my main beef with journalists, is that they should be far more savvy about the politics that is going on around the AGW debate. Sometimes I get the impression that it's just a job, and they really do the minimum to get the details right.