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Posted (edited)

 

The supreme irony of the bolded being that that is PRECISELY what global warming activists do.

the personalities of the scientists you know must be much weaker than the ones i do.

Edited by birdog1960
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Posted

the personalities of the scientists you know must be much weaker than the ones i do.

Wasn't my point. Point was: when it suits your argument, you suddenly decry a tactic in support of the honesty of the scientific method that you otherwise routinely and consistently support in the suppression of it.

 

If any of the scientists you "know" were to show any skepticism of global warming, you know damn well that you'd be leading the charge to browbeat them with "consensus." You !@#$ing hypocrite. :lol:

Posted

Wasn't my point. Point was: when it suits your argument, you suddenly decry a tactic in support of the honesty of the scientific method that you otherwise routinely and consistently support in the suppression of it.

 

If any of the scientists you "know" were to show any skepticism of global warming, you know damn well that you'd be leading the charge to browbeat them with "consensus." You !@#$ing hypocrite. :lol:

some of the greatest scientists made their name bucking consensus. this is a perfect opportunity for a better idea if one exists.

Posted

so your argument against the fact that many very talented people either have not realized that they have devoted their working life to a lie, have realized it and decided to continue the lie or just don't care is that they are invariably pummeled into submission by the consensus. and their disincentive to bring down a faulty thesis and replace it with a better one of their own is that they feel threatened by the consensus or loss of employment.

 

try again. many of the people you are dismissing are rare intellects that have plenty of alternative opportunities.

You're entitled to interpret what I'm saying any way you choose, but if you care to understand what I'm saying, let me put it another way: scientists, no matter how talented or brilliant they may be, can not reach an accurate conclusion with regard to climate change when they draw the baseline from presumed numbers representative of a time more than a century before their own means of measurement was ever developed. In addition, I am always skeptical of studies that are funded by grants or outside agencies, due to the possible interest on the part of the organization funding the study, and the disincentive to those conducting the study to reach a conclusive end to the project, shutting off the need for further funds.

 

And to focus on consensus is a waste of time. Consensus is not conclusive, except to the intellectually lazy.

Posted

 

 

 

Davos, which has become a playground of sorts for the global elite, is expected to feature at least 40 heads of state and 2,500 top business executives. Former Vice President-turned-carbon billionaire Al Gore and rapper Pharrell Williams will be there as well; each plans to discuss global warming and recycling respectively.

Posted

I'm sure if we put in a cap and trade system that people would still fly private jets

You're entitled to interpret what I'm saying any way you choose, but if you care to understand what I'm saying, let me put it another way: scientists, no matter how talented or brilliant they may be, can not reach an accurate conclusion with regard to climate change when they draw the baseline from presumed numbers representative of a time more than a century before their own means of measurement was ever developed. In addition, I am always skeptical of studies that are funded by grants or outside agencies, due to the possible interest on the part of the organization funding the study, and the disincentive to those conducting the study to reach a conclusive end to the project, shutting off the need for further funds.

 

And to focus on consensus is a waste of time. Consensus is not conclusive, except to the intellectually lazy.

Right. I'm pretty sure your political outlook completely colors your "scientific" reasoning. You remind me of the people that that tried to claim smoking was healthy because you couldn't prove smoking caused cancer. Hey, some smokers never got cancer! I'm sure you have a point about old stats. Fine, but they don't take away from what they argue about why they believe the climate is changing.

 

Do you also doubt this:

 

Human activities are altering the carbon cycle—both by adding more CO2 to the atmosphere and by influencing the ability of natural sinks, like forests, to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. While CO2 emissions come from a variety of natural sources, human-related emissions are responsible for the increase that has occurred in the atmosphere since the industrial revolution. [1]

 

Posted

I'm sure if we put in a cap and trade system that people would still fly private jets

Right. I'm pretty sure your political outlook completely colors your "scientific" reasoning. You remind me of the people that that tried to claim smoking was healthy because you couldn't prove smoking caused cancer. Hey, some smokers never got cancer! I'm sure you have a point about old stats. Fine, but they don't take away from what they argue about why they believe the climate is changing.

 

Do you also doubt this:

 

There was nothing of my 'political outlook' in anything I said. All I did was explain the rationale for my skepticism. You can agree or disagree - I couldn't care less.

 

And yes, I doubt any conclusive statements on both climate change and humanity's direct influence on it, both pro and con. Both deniers and alarmists are basing their conclusions on incomplete science.

Posted

I'm sure if we put in a cap and trade system that people would still fly private jets

 

 

The whole point is that they are flying their private jets to the Global Warming Summit!

Posted (edited)

 

The whole point is that they are flying their private jets to the Global Warming Summit!

it's an economic summit organized and attended mostly by elites (with private planes). the environmental stuff is window dressing as iare the 1 or 2 lectures by oxfam reps on the prediction that over 1/2 of the worlds wealth will be in the hands of 1% starting next year. they'll likely be 20 reporters and 2 attendees at these talks.

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/19/us-davos-meeting-inequality-idUSKBN0KS0SW20150119

Edited by birdog1960
Posted

it's an economic summit organized and attended mostly by elites (with private planes). the environmental stuff is window dressing as iare the 1 or 2 lectures by oxfam reps on the prediction that over 1/2 of the worlds wealth will be in the hands of 1% starting next year. they'll likely be 20 reporters and 2 attendees at these talks.

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/19/us-davos-meeting-inequality-idUSKBN0KS0SW20150119

So despite a world that enacts more and more of the liberal agenda every single day, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer? Who could have predicted that? /rhetorical

Posted

The whole point is that they are flying their private jets to the Global Warming Summit!

So what? Why should that influence my thinking on the science, policy matters or stratification of wealth at all??

So despite a world that enacts more and more of the liberal agenda every single day, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer? Who could have predicted that? /rhetorical

So obviously the liberal/socialist agenda isn't stopping economic growth. So what?

There was nothing of my 'political outlook' in anything I said. All I did was explain the rationale for my skepticism. You can agree or disagree - I couldn't care less.

 

And yes, I doubt any conclusive statements on both climate change and humanity's direct influence on it, both pro and con. Both deniers and alarmists are basing their conclusions on incomplete science.

 

No I think it's pretty straight forward. Does co2 help trap heat and increase other factors that trap heat? And is there more co2 in the air? Hard to get past those really basic questions there

Posted

lol...classic.

 

 

 

So despite a world that enacts more and more of the liberal agenda every single day, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer? Who could have predicted that? /rhetorical

I think they are all meeting there figuring out how to get us even more under their collective thumbs.

Posted

No I think it's pretty straight forward. Does co2 help trap heat and increase other factors that trap heat? And is there more co2 in the air? Hard to get past those really basic questions there

 

CO2? Don't you mean "carbon?"

 

It's actually very easy to get past those really basic questions. I did so several pages back.

Posted

So despite a world that enacts more and more of the liberal agenda every single day, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer? Who could have predicted that? /rhetorical

i don't agree with your premise. more and more power is being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, just, not coincidentally, like wealth. the hope for the rest of us is that those meeting in davos see that the current course, left unaltered, doesn't end well for them, either.

Posted

or perhaps the majority of organizational members are convinced of the high likelihood of future calamity and are trying their best to change its course.

Actually they are not as Judith Curry points out in her post The 52% Consensus. It would also be a good idea to read Dr. Curry's response to the AMS Statement on Climate Change.

 

your argument discounts the time, effort and innate intelligence required to obtain and maintain a doctoral position at a highly regarded institution like NASA.

So you are apparently unaware of confirmation bias and by extension the reason for the scientific method. For some reason you appear to believe that scientist are immune to such things in spite of overwhelming historical evidence that they are not. How is that the rocket scientist at NASA, who were aware of the vulnerable of the rubber O-rings to failure at low temperatures, allowed the launch of the space shuttle Challenger?

 

The late Dr. Thomas Gold touched on the subject in his essay "New Ideas in Science". Dr. Gold had developed an interest in the workings of the inner ear, specifically tinnitus (ringing in the ear) after WWII. The theories at the time all involved some passive mechanism none of which could adequately explain the phenomenon. Dr. Gold proposed a active mechanism that explained the effect which was simply ignored by the so called experts. It was more than 30 years later that Dr. Gold theory was finally acknowledged to be correct. Dr. Gold referred to this ignoring evidence as the "herd instinct". A quick excerpt:

 

If a large proportion of the scientific community in one field is guided by the herd instinct, then they cannot adopt another viewpoint since they cannot imagine that the whole herd will swing around at the same time. It is merely the logistics of the situation. Even if everybody were willing to change course, nobody individually will be sure that he will not be outside the herd when he does so. Perhaps if they could do it as neatly as a flock of starlings, they would. So this inertia-producing effect is a very serious one.

 

It is not just the herd instinct in the individuals that you have to worry about, but you have to worry about how it is augmented by the way in which science is handled. If support from peers, if moral and financial consequences are at stake, then on the whole staying with the herd is the successful policy for the individual who is depending on these, but it is not the successful policy for the pursuit of science.

 

Staying with the herd to many people also has an advantage that they would not run the risk of exposing their ignorance. If one departs from the herd, then one will be asked, one will be charged to explain why one has departed from the herd. One has to be able to offer the detailed justifications, and one's understanding of the subject will be criticized. If one stays with the herd, then mostly there is no such charge. "Yes, I believe that because doesn't everybody else believe that?" That is enough justification. It isn't to me, but it is to very many other people. The sheep in the interior of the herd are well protected from the bite in the ankle by the sheep dog

.

The late Richard Feynman in his Caltech commencement address in 1974 (Cargo Cult Science) warns scientist to not fool themselves. He gives this historical example:

 

 

We have learned a lot from experience about how to handle some of the ways we fool ourselves. One example: Millikan measured the charge on an electron by an experiment with falling oil drops, and got an answer which we now know not to be quite right. It's a little bit off because he had the incorrect value for the viscosity of air. It's interesting to look at the history of measurements of the charge of an electron, after Millikan. If you plot them as a function of time, you find that one is a little bit bigger than Millikan's, and the next one's a little bit bigger than that, and the next one's a little bit bigger than that, until finally they settle down to a number which is higher.

 

Why didn't they discover the new number was higher right away? It's a thing that scientists are ashamed of--this history--because it's apparent that people did things like this: When they got a number that was too high above Millikan's, they thought something must be wrong--and they would look for and find a reason why something might be wrong. When they got a number close to Millikan's value they didn't look so hard. And so they eliminated the numbers that were too far off, and did other things like that. We've learned those tricks nowadays, and now we don't have that kind of a disease.

That was 1974 and indeed climate science does indeed suffer from that disease as evidenced by the graph of models vs. reality I posted previously. Scientists are human. They like all other humans are subjected to confirmation bias. If they weren't there would be no need for the scientific method. Consensus is not science, it is politics. The scientific method simply says if the theory doesn't match nature then the theory is wrong.
Posted

Actually they are not as Judith Curry points out in her post The 52% Consensus. It would also be a good idea to read Dr. Curry's response to the AMS Statement on Climate Change.

 

 

So you are apparently unaware of confirmation bias and by extension the reason for the scientific method. For some reason you appear to believe that scientist are immune to such things in spite of overwhelming historical evidence that they are not. How is that the rocket scientist at NASA, who were aware of the vulnerable of the rubber O-rings to failure at low temperatures, allowed the launch of the space shuttle Challenger?

 

The late Dr. Thomas Gold touched on the subject in his essay "New Ideas in Science". Dr. Gold had developed an interest in the workings of the inner ear, specifically tinnitus (ringing in the ear) after WWII. The theories at the time all involved some passive mechanism none of which could adequately explain the phenomenon. Dr. Gold proposed a active mechanism that explained the effect which was simply ignored by the so called experts. It was more than 30 years later that Dr. Gold theory was finally acknowledged to be correct. Dr. Gold referred to this ignoring evidence as the "herd instinct". A quick excerpt:

 

.

The late Richard Feynman in his Caltech commencement address in 1974 (Cargo Cult Science) warns scientist to not fool themselves. He gives this historical example:

 

 

That was 1974 and indeed climate science does indeed suffer from that disease as evidenced by the graph of models vs. reality I posted previously. Scientists are human. They like all other humans are subjected to confirmation bias. If they weren't there would be no need for the scientific method. Consensus is not science, it is politics. The scientific method simply says if the theory doesn't match nature then the theory is wrong.

Question. Do you think you might be suffering from the same herd mentality that scientists are suffering from, as you say? Is it a possibility that the Conservatives are ignoring the science because they can't see beyond the herd? That's a possibility, too, isn't it?

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