First of all, it was Aristotle who tutored Alexander the Great, not Socrates. Socrates was forced to drink hemlock because his "wisdom" was deemed too obnoxious by his fellow Athenians, perhaps because he was home schooled.
Seriously, Alexander the Great had a tutor because he was the son of a king, someone of immense privilege. Much like then it remains to this day. Those with money and influence get a good education and good health care, etc. A strong public education system provides a means for the less fortunate to find a way to the top without having to take up arms for their due and respect. Although one may feel superior to those who get educated in a public school, it is worth keeping in mind that its precisely because public school education is available that our society hasn't further descended all the way back to the old status quo, where only the wealthy are considered worthy. However, unchooling and home schooling may well leave out enough millions that a few hundred thousand "geniuses" are hardly going to be able to stop the collective actions or effects of billions of uneducated, hungry, and desperate humans.
"a major component of schooling is in fact/just being in school/ so you'll be, hopefully, a vaguely functional human being who can navigate all the various and sundry organizations of life and put up with all the other dysfunctional members of the species with a minimum quantity of blood spilling."
Its not surprising to find so many "geniuses" on Slashdot, but in the end, eduction is not simply a function of the individual. It is also a function of society and humanity, particularly in its effect. There have been many great geniuses, but if you could ask Archimedes, Hepatia, Galois, Landau, or Hausdorff they might suggest that if only the masses had been better educated, their world might have turned out differently. It would be a profound mistake to think otherwise, regardless of your opinion of your peers.
This misses the point. While we all would like to believe that one guy with a great idea can change the world, the fact is that more often than not a million guys without a great idea can easily undo what the greatest minds have accomplished. That's the problem facing humanity, not that there are not good ideas out there or that new ideas aren't needed, its that we need to educate for respect for good ideas among ALL students and respect for the collective actions of ALL people because of the effects collective action can have.
And its fairly easy to see given your example that even though you are "in the top 1%", you managed to pick up bad habits. Yes, learning how to be inquisitive is important, but so is learning the discipline needed to engage in collective activities with others. America is awash with "genius" that thinks it knows about everything, but can't seem to interact well with anyone to actually get things done, lest they get their own way. If you don't believe it, just go to a townhall meeting.
Perhaps that true because there are so many who, though standing knee deep in sludge, keep insisting that its not possible. It would seem they must be selling paddles and don't want anything to change their business model.
You say "The there is profit. The pharmaceutical firms are doing research, but then what happens when they try to pay for the research? "
I doubt that most are "screaming" about the "cost of the research", much of which is actually funded through spin-offs from government funded basic research.
Rather, most are screaming about the unnecessarily large 6 and 7 figure annual incomes the executives of these and other firms feel they are entitled to make. It is these disproportionate salaries that are creating the screams associated with the rising cost of medications and health care.
I would argue that the problem is not with "cowardice" (although you are right there is certainly plenty of that) but rather with the adulation of greed in our society. People seem incapable of being able to recognize value unless it can be translated into a pile of greenbacks, whose height and buying power they can then measure.
This is a silly notion. It reminds me of the diary entry by a leading scientist in the mid-1800's, who on the day Darwin presented his seminal research findings to the British Philosophical Society, noted that "nothing much happened today [in science]".
Basic science is not "like mining lower and lower grade ores" but rather it is more like discovering and mining entirely new elements and understanding the fundamental realities of what makes elements different in the first place.
This isn't really a question of economics or social organization, but rather a question of how humans determine what is valuable (willing to spend money, the common denominator of values, on). Seemingly overlooked and under-appreciated observations often prove that the relative value of ideas depends largely on what insights and imagination those who have them possess and not what they may be worth to others. It is for this reason that broad advances in molecular biology are likely to hold the key to emerging job creating technologies. The socially, politically, economically and ecological necessities of advances in the biosciences in particular will bring humans kicking and screaming into a brave new world, whether they like it or not.
Judging from the current level of political, cultural, and intellectual discourse, I would suggest that a crash government program in understanding the molecular basis of cognition would provide the greatest revolution needed to solve human problems.
As much as we might hate too admit, humans are not nearly as intelligent as we need to be in order to address and solve the myriad of problems we readily create for ourselves. Richard Feynman ["Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong."] and Oliver Cromwell ["Think what if you might be wrong"] before him basically got it right. To think otherwise is to live in the delusion of wishful thinking.
Keep in mind that the problem of how we create the R&D to create new jobs can be solved in many very different ways. The two easiest and historically most probable scenarios are: 1) we turn every one into soldiers and start a war, no doubt need to protect the "homeland", that will then produce a great demand for nurses and skilled surgeons, not to mention jobs for those who develop new and imaginative ways for us to kill each other (remember that Al Qeida and other fanatics too are busy developing their own capacity for R&D) or 2) trash the planet and turn everyone into scavengers, who scour what is left of the landscape to survive (remember that no matter how careful or thoughtful you are, you still leave an ecological footprint that together with those of your fellow humans the effects of which are cumulative and sometimes multiplicative in nature). One can only hope that in either case, the rich, the powerful and the clever recognize that they or their offspring may someday soon become either casualties of war or the scavengers only food source and consequently are motivated to act to minimize the loss of the "commons" that will surely lead to either outcome. Let us hope they instead strive to reach alternative outcomes.
The big question is will they have enough time to do so without your help?
Ruppert Murdoch has created his empire by feeding on the commons and trying mightily to make it his private kingdom. I wouldn't count on the Wall Street Journal to lead this charge, as it would only be a plea for even more government sponsored perks for his own personal profit.
As the commons dwindles in its ability to support earth's carrying capacity, Murdoch now seeks new streams of profit by demanding that all should pay him ever more dearly for the privilege of finding out what he regards as "fair and balanced", no doubt in his mind, the monetized value of the entire commons as part of his bottom line.
These numbers don't really mean a lot, as they do not reflect what the money is actually spent on, nor do they reflect what the money is subsequently employed to do after the money is spent (recirculated). For example, although Social Security is roughly 21% of the budget, one can not necessarily conclude than none of it is spent on science and research, either directly or indirectly.
Although you are generally right that the actual amount directed exclusively toward "science" is a undoubtedly a very small percentage of each of these "budget line items" to calculate the actual amount of spending requires more than a simple tallying of budget categories. Within those billions for Medicate and Medicade are no doubt moneys that flow to research on cures and technical advance. More transparency is accounting would greatly facilitate the accurate amounts spent on support of our national scientific infrastructure.
Yes, so many in business and politics don't see their role as American citizens as more important than their making money for personal gain. The accumulation of wealth has become perceived as valuable than personal sacrifice for the common good. To many, the entire concept of collective government is viewed as the problem not the solution.
Driven by self-serving market forces, its an attitude that has permeated nearly every aspect of our culture. Americans today by and large do not see the government budget as their money, rather they see it as someone else's money. This arises in large part because they continue to elect representatives, who represent corporate interests rather than their own. The decline of our political culture (the decline of our economy and scientific infrastructure are merely byproducts) has reached the point that corporations, most obviously in the area of health care, now actually buy politicians and market their own political agendas to keep the gravy flowing and the current system in place, craftily selling them to the foolish, who then proceed to attack their own self-interest. Corporations and corporate media in our "free" markets tout the evils of socialism and brand any collective action for the common good that may affect their self-interest "socialism". The short-sighted and the ideological rigid (conservative) are more than eager to follow their lead.
Sure, the lip service of cheap patriotism is easily paid, but you can count the number who are ultimately willing to pay either higher prices or more taxes for the "greater good" in single digits. The willingness of many to see any kind of collective activity as a sign of "socialism" only emphasizes that the kind of initiative the writer is talking about will more likely take place elsewhere, China, India, Europe, Japan, Korea, Canada, where they more readily accept and recognize that economic and social realities do not come in easily pigeonholed extremes that can be painted black or white. The transition and acceleration of societies more adept at handling and developing collective action other than our own has been picking up steam over the past few decades, particularly in the biosciences where much of the future lies. However, this is not necessarily a bad thing as the collective effort becomes globally rather than nationally oriented.
Considering his morals, Murdoch might as well be Satan.
The world will be a better place the day Murdoch finds himself penniless. I for one wouldn't pay him a dime, no matter what he passes off as "news". It used to be you could read the Wall Street Journal and actually get non-biased economic reports. Now they are so filtered and planted with all sorts of Pro-News Corporation slants that you simply can't trust the factual content of even their stock quotes.
Barv appears to be a lot like Diogenes, spending his entire life looking for an honest man. Good thing about Barv and Diogenes that even if he does have o wait a long time, when he finally finds what he is looking for, it will have been worth the wait.
Sadly, for Diogenes he died before he ever did. So too planet earth?
Forget It. I'll buy books and plant trees instead. Besides, hundreds of thousands of Kindles downloading (uploading?) ebooks comes at a non-insignificant energy cost (CO2 production) It would be a good question, what is the annual CO2 production either per gibabyte or per person per year per.
Of remaining forests probably fewer than 9% are old growth. Old growth forests (typically uncut for 200+ years) are few and far between, nowadays. Sadly, so is most of the fauna associated with old growth forests.
"Every one of my Physics friends (including those who went on to their PhD) and anything I have heard from my professors and their professors (except for one) says global warming smacks of bad science."
Yes, and Einstein went to his grave not believing in quantum electrodynamics. There are a number of theoretical physicists who will go to their graves denying global warming. So What? Education levels and the disciplines of the scientists involved are largely irrelevant to the science. Perhaps, much to the discomfort of theoretical physicists, they do not sit at the top of a lofty scientific food chain, which from the apex of their perspective allows the quality of all science to be ascertained.
The question is: are global mean temperatures rising and rising as a result of CO2 in the atmosphere? So far, the overwhelming empirical results across disciplines suggest that the answer is yes. Would it be wise for the world to wait for string theory to confirm to this observation before it begins to address the implications of this fact. No. Might we hope that theoretical physicists might assist in building fusion reactors to address this crisis in time to matter? Lets hope so.
Scientists "outside their field" may not do direct experimentation or modeling that occurs in another scientific discipline. However, they can take such assumptions and and such conclusions test them in the context of their own expertise using the scientific method. Biologists do not routinely take temperature measurements and evaluate systems of linear and non-linear differential equations as do climate modelers, but they can for example, observe the changes in the distributions of many organisms and conclude that such changes are consistent with a model of global warming and inconsistent with either stable or cooling temperatures. Indeed, if you look at the composition of fish species taken at oil rigs off the north-central Gulf of Mexico coast, you will observe that there has been a significant increase in the number of species that were formerly only know to occur in Central America and that species requiring cooler waters, such as stripped bass are largely disappearing, despite heroic restocking efforts. Likewise, those who study ice cores and the dissolved gasses within them can also convincingly generate a detailed record of temperatures over the past 10,000 - 20,000 years and like-wise conclude that global warming is a fact. The wonderful thing about science is that it is interdisciplinary. You don't have to be a scientist in one particular field to address issues central to the scientific debate concerning global warming. Phenomena, such as global warming can be studied from a variety of perspectives by many different kinds of scientists.
The reason there are so many scientists on one side of this debate and few on the other, is that data drive their conclusions. The scientific community has now moved well past the question of whether global warming is occurring, this is a largely settled issue scientifically. They are now focusing on how fast it is occurring and what the consequences the warming will be. Actually, this has become far more worrisome and with much broader implications than simply recognizing that we will have to begin to live with increasingly higher temperatures.
That the "opinions" of these scientists are either consistent or inconsistent with a variety of kinds of data and expectations regarding such data and that such "opinions" have a "special weight" afforded them, stems from the predictiveness of these "opinions", not the fact that scientists have them.
Your false choice between scientists making "their own opinions" or "simply believing in what they are taught in school" underscores a misconception in your mind as to what science is. Science is not sophism. Science is not about what you know. It is about how you know. It is not the conclusions that matter, it is how those conclusions are reached and the implications of these conclusions have to "likely outcomes" that make what scientists have to say important.
If you were a betting man, this might tell you something worth listening to. If you are not, or simply like to bet only on the long odds, you can ignore scientist's "opinions" with respect to global warming and instead accept those of any preacher, witchdoctor, republican politician, or random number generator you please. However, as a caution, should you prefer the latter approach, you might want to consider hedging your bet, just in case those pesky scientists turn out to be right. Don't say you weren't warned.
Counting engineers as scientists may not be all that material as the vast majority of engineers are not citizens of the US and wouldn't be engaged in US electoral politics anyway..
Terms like Liberal, Conservative, Independent, Socialist, Marxist, Republican, Democratic, Strict Constructionist, Social Liberal, Financial Coonservative etc. mean little or nothing unless one has a specific context of outcomes to discuss them in, both those that occurred in the past and those expected in the future.
However, such terms are highly valued and widely used in sophism to distinguish those who are on "your team/advocates" or "the opponents team/opposition"
No need to find a couple of other planets to experiment with, we are happily experimenting with planet earth.
Global warming deniers would have us believe that the mean global temperatures over past decade has been getting cooler, although the thinning of Arctic ice, the retreat of every single world glacier, the more rapidly break up on Antarctic ice shields, the increased drying of continental interiors, increasing acidification of the world's oceans, and global mean temperatures and number of record temperature days tell a dramatically different story.
The track record of those predicting global warming has also been shoddy, as recent revisions earlier model have been required, because they fail to account for the unexpected increase in the amount of warming observed. However, model accuracy does seem to be improving.
The lack of global leadership or conversely the over-sized influence of those who stand to financially benefit by a "go slow" approach to carbon dioxide reductions are placing humanity in a tough spot. It looks increasingly as if human destiny is riding on which side of this bet it takes. Given the momentum of the forces involved, if the earth continues to warm faster than expected humanity may soon face some grim choices with respect to food production (both agricultural and primary oceanic productivity) with very little it will be able to do about it.
If you think political discourse and human ability govern world affairs are unstable now wait until billions, rather than mere hundreds of millions as is the case today, can find to little food and turn their hungry attention to politicians and global warming deniers. If, or more likely when, they do, it will be a fitting tribute to their contribution to having waited too long to see what has now become the obvious.
"And if we also look at global warming with the same critical eye, can we really say that humans are responsible for global warming when all we can really show is a strong correlation?"
By this type of argumentation one can argue that the earth is not really an oblate spheroid, but instead it is flat as after all there is still only a correlation between all measures of its shape taken to date. After all, all photographs taken to date from outer space show it as just a flat circle.
One could take a similar approach and say we somehow know "nothing" about the warming effect of CO2 in the atmosphere and it really doesn't matter how much CO2 will add as after all, its "only correlated" with global warming. In the meantime, being UNABLE to make the mental jump between extremely strong correlation and "causation", we slowly cook the planet and ourselves.
"And if we also look at global warming with the same critical eye, can we really say that humans are responsible for global warming when all we can really show is a strong correlation?"
By this type of argumentation one can argue that the earth is not really an oblate spheroid, but instead it is flat as after all there is still only a correlation between all measures of its shape taken to date. After all, all photographs taken to date from outer space show it as just a flat circle.
One could take a similar approach and say we somehow know "nothing" about the warming effect of CO2 in the atmosphere and it really doesn't matter how much CO2 will add as after all, its "only correlated" with global warming. In the meantime, being able to make the mental jump between extremely strong correlation and "causation", we slowly cook the planet and ourselves.
Slashdot Mirror
First of all, it was Aristotle who tutored Alexander the Great, not Socrates. Socrates was forced to drink hemlock because his "wisdom" was deemed too obnoxious by his fellow Athenians, perhaps because he was home schooled.
Seriously, Alexander the Great had a tutor because he was the son of a king, someone of immense privilege. Much like then it remains to this day. Those with money and influence get a good education and good health care, etc. A strong public education system provides a means for the less fortunate to find a way to the top without having to take up arms for their due and respect. Although one may feel superior to those who get educated in a public school, it is worth keeping in mind that its precisely because public school education is available that our society hasn't further descended all the way back to the old status quo, where only the wealthy are considered worthy. However, unchooling and home schooling may well leave out enough millions that a few hundred thousand "geniuses" are hardly going to be able to stop the collective actions or effects of billions of uneducated, hungry, and desperate humans.
in the "School of Hard Knocks".
"a major component of schooling is in fact /just being in school/ so you'll be, hopefully, a vaguely functional human being who can navigate all the various and sundry organizations of life and put up with all the other dysfunctional members of the species with a minimum quantity of blood spilling."
Its not surprising to find so many "geniuses" on Slashdot, but in the end, eduction is not simply a function of the individual. It is also a function of society and humanity, particularly in its effect. There have been many great geniuses, but if you could ask Archimedes, Hepatia, Galois, Landau, or Hausdorff they might suggest that if only the masses had been better educated, their world might have turned out differently. It would be a profound mistake to think otherwise, regardless of your opinion of your peers.
This misses the point. While we all would like to believe that one guy with a great idea can change the world, the fact is that more often than not a million guys without a great idea can easily undo what the greatest minds have accomplished. That's the problem facing humanity, not that there are not good ideas out there or that new ideas aren't needed, its that we need to educate for respect for good ideas among ALL students and respect for the collective actions of ALL people because of the effects collective action can have.
And its fairly easy to see given your example that even though you are "in the top 1%", you managed to pick up bad habits. Yes, learning how to be inquisitive is important, but so is learning the discipline needed to engage in collective activities with others. America is awash with "genius" that thinks it knows about everything, but can't seem to interact well with anyone to actually get things done, lest they get their own way. If you don't believe it, just go to a townhall meeting.
"There's no utopia."
Perhaps that true because there are so many who, though standing knee deep in sludge, keep insisting that its not possible. It would seem they must be selling paddles and don't want anything to change their business model.
You say "The there is profit. The pharmaceutical firms are doing research, but then what happens when they try to pay for the research? "
I doubt that most are "screaming" about the "cost of the research", much of which is actually funded through spin-offs from government funded basic research.
Rather, most are screaming about the unnecessarily large 6 and 7 figure annual incomes the executives of these and other firms feel they are entitled to make. It is these disproportionate salaries that are creating the screams associated with the rising cost of medications and health care.
I would argue that the problem is not with "cowardice" (although you are right there is certainly plenty of that) but rather with the adulation of greed in our society. People seem incapable of being able to recognize value unless it can be translated into a pile of greenbacks, whose height and buying power they can then measure.
This is a silly notion. It reminds me of the diary entry by a leading scientist in the mid-1800's, who on the day Darwin presented his seminal research findings to the British Philosophical Society, noted that "nothing much happened today [in science]".
Basic science is not "like mining lower and lower grade ores" but rather it is more like discovering and mining entirely new elements and understanding the fundamental realities of what makes elements different in the first place.
This isn't really a question of economics or social organization, but rather a question of how humans determine what is valuable (willing to spend money, the common denominator of values, on). Seemingly overlooked and under-appreciated observations often prove that the relative value of ideas depends largely on what insights and imagination those who have them possess and not what they may be worth to others. It is for this reason that broad advances in molecular biology are likely to hold the key to emerging job creating technologies. The socially, politically, economically and ecological necessities of advances in the biosciences in particular will bring humans kicking and screaming into a brave new world, whether they like it or not.
Judging from the current level of political, cultural, and intellectual discourse, I would suggest that a crash government program in understanding the molecular basis of cognition would provide the greatest revolution needed to solve human problems.
As much as we might hate too admit, humans are not nearly as intelligent as we need to be in order to address and solve the myriad of problems we readily create for ourselves. Richard Feynman ["Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong."] and Oliver Cromwell ["Think what if you might be wrong"] before him basically got it right. To think otherwise is to live in the delusion of wishful thinking.
Keep in mind that the problem of how we create the R&D to create new jobs can be solved in many very different ways. The two easiest and historically most probable scenarios are: 1) we turn every one into soldiers and start a war, no doubt need to protect the "homeland", that will then produce a great demand for nurses and skilled surgeons, not to mention jobs for those who develop new and imaginative ways for us to kill each other (remember that Al Qeida and other fanatics too are busy developing their own capacity for R&D) or 2) trash the planet and turn everyone into scavengers, who scour what is left of the landscape to survive (remember that no matter how careful or thoughtful you are, you still leave an ecological footprint that together with those of your fellow humans the effects of which are cumulative and sometimes multiplicative in nature). One can only hope that in either case, the rich, the powerful and the clever recognize that they or their offspring may someday soon become either casualties of war or the scavengers only food source and consequently are motivated to act to minimize the loss of the "commons" that will surely lead to either outcome. Let us hope they instead strive to reach alternative outcomes.
The big question is will they have enough time to do so without your help?
Ruppert Murdoch has created his empire by feeding on the commons and trying mightily to make it his private kingdom. I wouldn't count on the Wall Street Journal to lead this charge, as it would only be a plea for even more government sponsored perks for his own personal profit.
As the commons dwindles in its ability to support earth's carrying capacity, Murdoch now seeks new streams of profit by demanding that all should pay him ever more dearly for the privilege of finding out what he regards as "fair and balanced", no doubt in his mind, the monetized value of the entire commons as part of his bottom line.
These numbers don't really mean a lot, as they do not reflect what the money is actually spent on, nor do they reflect what the money is subsequently employed to do after the money is spent (recirculated). For example, although Social Security is roughly 21% of the budget, one can not necessarily conclude than none of it is spent on science and research, either directly or indirectly.
Although you are generally right that the actual amount directed exclusively toward "science" is a undoubtedly a very small percentage of each of these "budget line items" to calculate the actual amount of spending requires more than a simple tallying of budget categories. Within those billions for Medicate and Medicade are no doubt moneys that flow to research on cures and technical advance. More transparency is accounting would greatly facilitate the accurate amounts spent on support of our national scientific infrastructure.
Yes, so many in business and politics don't see their role as American citizens as more important than their making money for personal gain. The accumulation of wealth has become perceived as valuable than personal sacrifice for the common good. To many, the entire concept of collective government is viewed as the problem not the solution.
Driven by self-serving market forces, its an attitude that has permeated nearly every aspect of our culture. Americans today by and large do not see the government budget as their money, rather they see it as someone else's money. This arises in large part because they continue to elect representatives, who represent corporate interests rather than their own. The decline of our political culture (the decline of our economy and scientific infrastructure are merely byproducts) has reached the point that corporations, most obviously in the area of health care, now actually buy politicians and market their own political agendas to keep the gravy flowing and the current system in place, craftily selling them to the foolish, who then proceed to attack their own self-interest. Corporations and corporate media in our "free" markets tout the evils of socialism and brand any collective action for the common good that may affect their self-interest "socialism". The short-sighted and the ideological rigid (conservative) are more than eager to follow their lead.
Sure, the lip service of cheap patriotism is easily paid, but you can count the number who are ultimately willing to pay either higher prices or more taxes for the "greater good" in single digits. The willingness of many to see any kind of collective activity as a sign of "socialism" only emphasizes that the kind of initiative the writer is talking about will more likely take place elsewhere, China, India, Europe, Japan, Korea, Canada, where they more readily accept and recognize that economic and social realities do not come in easily pigeonholed extremes that can be painted black or white. The transition and acceleration of societies more adept at handling and developing collective action other than our own has been picking up steam over the past few decades, particularly in the biosciences where much of the future lies. However, this is not necessarily a bad thing as the collective effort becomes globally rather than nationally oriented.
Considering his morals, Murdoch might as well be Satan.
The world will be a better place the day Murdoch finds himself penniless. I for one wouldn't pay him a dime, no matter what he passes off as "news". It used to be you could read the Wall Street Journal and actually get non-biased economic reports. Now they are so filtered and planted with all sorts of Pro-News Corporation slants that you simply can't trust the factual content of even their stock quotes.
Barv appears to be a lot like Diogenes, spending his entire life looking for an honest man. Good thing about Barv and Diogenes that even if he does have o wait a long time, when he finally finds what he is looking for, it will have been worth the wait.
Sadly, for Diogenes he died before he ever did. So too planet earth?
Yes but each of her male fans need the extra 1500 pixels so that they could imagine themselves bit-maped in with her.
Perhaps the idea is to get users to go off and get DRM'd materials illegally, then set up a second income stream by suing them.
It may not be 1984 or an Animal Farm, but it is certainly a Brave New World.
Forget It. I'll buy books and plant trees instead. Besides, hundreds of thousands of Kindles downloading (uploading?) ebooks comes at a non-insignificant energy cost (CO2 production) It would be a good question, what is the annual CO2 production either per gibabyte or per person per year per.
Of remaining forests probably fewer than 9% are old growth. Old growth forests (typically uncut for 200+ years) are few and far between, nowadays. Sadly, so is most of the fauna associated with old growth forests.
"Satellite data is starting to show a bunch of negative numbers. "
What satellite data?
"Every one of my Physics friends (including those who went on to their PhD) and anything I have heard from my professors and their professors (except for one) says global warming smacks of bad science."
Yes, and Einstein went to his grave not believing in quantum electrodynamics. There are a number of theoretical physicists who will go to their graves denying global warming. So What? Education levels and the disciplines of the scientists involved are largely irrelevant to the science. Perhaps, much to the discomfort of theoretical physicists, they do not sit at the top of a lofty scientific food chain, which from the apex of their perspective allows the quality of all science to be ascertained.
The question is: are global mean temperatures rising and rising as a result of CO2 in the atmosphere? So far, the overwhelming empirical results across disciplines suggest that the answer is yes. Would it be wise for the world to wait for string theory to confirm to this observation before it begins to address the implications of this fact. No. Might we hope that theoretical physicists might assist in building fusion reactors to address this crisis in time to matter? Lets hope so.
Scientists "outside their field" may not do direct experimentation or modeling that occurs in another scientific discipline. However, they can take such assumptions and and such conclusions test them in the context of their own expertise using the scientific method. Biologists do not routinely take temperature measurements and evaluate systems of linear and non-linear differential equations as do climate modelers, but they can for example, observe the changes in the distributions of many organisms and conclude that such changes are consistent with a model of global warming and inconsistent with either stable or cooling temperatures. Indeed, if you look at the composition of fish species taken at oil rigs off the north-central Gulf of Mexico coast, you will observe that there has been a significant increase in the number of species that were formerly only know to occur in Central America and that species requiring cooler waters, such as stripped bass are largely disappearing, despite heroic restocking efforts. Likewise, those who study ice cores and the dissolved gasses within them can also convincingly generate a detailed record of temperatures over the past 10,000 - 20,000 years and like-wise conclude that global warming is a fact. The wonderful thing about science is that it is interdisciplinary. You don't have to be a scientist in one particular field to address issues central to the scientific debate concerning global warming. Phenomena, such as global warming can be studied from a variety of perspectives by many different kinds of scientists.
The reason there are so many scientists on one side of this debate and few on the other, is that data drive their conclusions. The scientific community has now moved well past the question of whether global warming is occurring, this is a largely settled issue scientifically. They are now focusing on how fast it is occurring and what the consequences the warming will be. Actually, this has become far more worrisome and with much broader implications than simply recognizing that we will have to begin to live with increasingly higher temperatures.
That the "opinions" of these scientists are either consistent or inconsistent with a variety of kinds of data and expectations regarding such data and that such "opinions" have a "special weight" afforded them, stems from the predictiveness of these "opinions", not the fact that scientists have them.
Your false choice between scientists making "their own opinions" or "simply believing in what they are taught in school" underscores a misconception in your mind as to what science is. Science is not sophism. Science is not about what you know. It is about how you know. It is not the conclusions that matter, it is how those conclusions are reached and the implications of these conclusions have to "likely outcomes" that make what scientists have to say important.
If you were a betting man, this might tell you something worth listening to. If you are not, or simply like to bet only on the long odds, you can ignore scientist's "opinions" with respect to global warming and instead accept those of any preacher, witchdoctor, republican politician, or random number generator you please. However, as a caution, should you prefer the latter approach, you might want to consider hedging your bet, just in case those pesky scientists turn out to be right. Don't say you weren't warned.
Counting engineers as scientists may not be all that material as the vast majority of engineers are not citizens of the US and wouldn't be engaged in US electoral politics anyway..
Terms like Liberal, Conservative, Independent, Socialist, Marxist, Republican, Democratic, Strict Constructionist, Social Liberal, Financial Coonservative etc. mean little or nothing unless one has a specific context of outcomes to discuss them in, both those that occurred in the past and those expected in the future.
However, such terms are highly valued and widely used in sophism to distinguish those who are on "your team/advocates" or "the opponents team/opposition"
No need to find a couple of other planets to experiment with, we are happily experimenting with planet earth.
Global warming deniers would have us believe that the mean global temperatures over past decade has been getting cooler, although the thinning of Arctic ice, the retreat of every single world glacier, the more rapidly break up on Antarctic ice shields, the increased drying of continental interiors, increasing acidification of the world's oceans, and global mean temperatures and number of record temperature days tell a dramatically different story.
The track record of those predicting global warming has also been shoddy, as recent revisions earlier model have been required, because they fail to account for the unexpected increase in the amount of warming observed. However, model accuracy does seem to be improving.
The lack of global leadership or conversely the over-sized influence of those who stand to financially benefit by a "go slow" approach to carbon dioxide reductions are placing humanity in a tough spot. It looks increasingly as if human destiny is riding on which side of this bet it takes. Given the momentum of the forces involved, if the earth continues to warm faster than expected humanity may soon face some grim choices with respect to food production (both agricultural and primary oceanic productivity) with very little it will be able to do about it.
If you think political discourse and human ability govern world affairs are unstable now wait until billions, rather than mere hundreds of millions as is the case today, can find to little food and turn their hungry attention to politicians and global warming deniers. If, or more likely when, they do, it will be a fitting tribute to their contribution to having waited too long to see what has now become the obvious.
"And if we also look at global warming with the same critical eye, can we really say that humans are responsible for global warming when all we can really show is a strong correlation?"
By this type of argumentation one can argue that the earth is not really an oblate spheroid, but instead it is flat as after all there is still only a correlation between all measures of its shape taken to date. After all, all photographs taken to date from outer space show it as just a flat circle.
One could take a similar approach and say we somehow know "nothing" about the warming effect of CO2 in the atmosphere and it really doesn't matter how much CO2 will add as after all, its "only correlated" with global warming. In the meantime, being UNABLE to make the mental jump between extremely strong correlation and "causation", we slowly cook the planet and ourselves.
"And if we also look at global warming with the same critical eye, can we really say that humans are responsible for global warming when all we can really show is a strong correlation?"
By this type of argumentation one can argue that the earth is not really an oblate spheroid, but instead it is flat as after all there is still only a correlation between all measures of its shape taken to date. After all, all photographs taken to date from outer space show it as just a flat circle.
One could take a similar approach and say we somehow know "nothing" about the warming effect of CO2 in the atmosphere and it really doesn't matter how much CO2 will add as after all, its "only correlated" with global warming. In the meantime, being able to make the mental jump between extremely strong correlation and "causation", we slowly cook the planet and ourselves.