Sea Monkies are the thugs of the plankton world. They are real bastards. Catch them and kill them.
Global warming Page 3
Quote: SlagA @ December 6, 2007, 11:14 PMCinnamon - please read this as my shorthand - I tend to type fast and concise and sometimes it sounds a lot ruder than I intend it to be - so apols in advance.
No worries, my own flit between rudeness and needs-a-spear-up-the-rectum self-righteousness.
Quote: SlagA @ December 6, 2007, 11:14 PMLikewise, we can't fall into the trap of taking science for gospel. It has been wrong time and again. It will continue being wrong. A debt to advancement does not mean we must turn a blind eye to wrongdoing whenever, or wherever, it occurs. It doesn't mean that we must kow-tow like bulls being led by their ringed noses just because they gave us the Internet. It doesn't mean that we must accept their prophetic dispensations without a questioning mind. In some ways we are a lazy species. We like to let others think for us. When that person wears a white coat, or a dog collar, or a chain of office - all the better.
Well, of course and that's why we look at the opposing arguments. The problem for me is that I had to chew my fingernails to the wrists before receiving even a c grade in GCSE science, so I can hardly study climate change myself. Still, it does seem that those who are warning of global warming (no poeticism intended) seem to be more reliable, with hundreds of studies from hundreds of international scientists - Joint science academies’, U.S. National Research Council, American Geophysical Union - whose evidence appears to corroborate. It is from the sceptics that the more unreliable information springs from, with Martin Durkin and the makers of The Great Global Warming Swindle revealed to have falsified and misrepresented data. Of course there is hysteria surrounding the subject - "OH MY GOD! A MODERATELY SIZED WAVE OFF SCARBOROUGH! ARMAGEDDON!" - but the effects can already be seen in the ice shelf disruption and the rising sea levels.
Yes, let's have scepticism, but the roots of scepticism are in study not denial. You rightly say that we shouldn't turn a blind eye to wrongdoing, but there hasn't been any fallacies or misrepresentations exposed in the Global Warming researchers, however hard the sceptical lobby attempt to slander them. I'm virulently opposed to shouting down arguments against the Global Warming study, but as of yet there don't seem to have been any worth championing.
There is a difference between accepting science and accepting religion. In science the evidence is there to study if one wishes.
Quote: SlagA @ December 6, 2007, 11:14 PMAs I said it sounds so bleeding soapbox Hyde Park and I'm sorry for that - I wish I could write more conversationally
Heh, yes, it's hard to have a genial conversation on global warming.
"Eee, luv, av' ya seen those risin' sea levels recently? Janet Marbury's right worried about 'er garden."
scientists will say anything depending on who is paying them.
in my old life i was a personal injury lawyer. i worked for both claimants and defendants. the claimant being the person who has been injured and the defendant being the insurance company who is paying the claim.
the claimant would often be examined by two doctors. one for the claimant, and one for the defendant. the claimant's doctor would usually say that all the claimant's injuries were caused by the accident and would never work again. thus the damages would potentially be enormous.
the defendant's doctor would usually say that the claimant's injuries weren't all caused by the accident and anyway he should have got better by now. thus the damages would be minimal.
two completely different opinions based on entirely the same information. the difference is purely down to who is paying the doctor.
Are you suggesting that somebody is paying every reputable scientific union to forecast the possible end of mankind, merely so that he can gain demented pleasure? Well, it could be Murdoch....
Quote: SlagA @ December 6, 2007, 9:54 PMWhole theories have been hung on fabricated evidence.
Someone will be mentioning weapons of mass destruction soon. Maybe within 45 minutes?
Anyway, I'm going to disagree with Mr Slag's case for a change (though I have viewed Rod Hull again). Your point wanders from the case that definite evidence is used in different ways by people with different agendas (fair enough) to the fact that sometimes people fabricate evidence and use this for nefarious means. Now, call me a scientific simpleton, but I would have thought that all scientists abhor the latter but can understand and scrutinise the former.
In the case of man-made climate change, there are scientific arguments either side. Where I stand is that I tend to believe the vast balance of independent scientists in peer-reviewed journals who say it is real, and that we should try to do something about it.
Where I disagree with the environmentalists who bang on about climate change is that I think they are going down a one-basket-of-eggs street with no effective comeback to people who don't buy the man-made climate change argument (often with legitimate scientific reasons). So, I don't think we should be looking into this single basket of eggs, because there are loads of other massively important reasons to "go greener" (for want of a better phrase) without even thinking about climate change impacts. Quick examples:
1/ fossil fuels are running out. When you have limited amounts of any commodity you should conserve them. And if you don't, you might be tempted to fight for them, though that's a whole different thread
2/ unrecycled rubbish is filling up huge areas of land that could be put to much better use for people - and it smells
3/ road traffic severs communities, contributes to ill health and makes the quality of life worse for many communities (and cars kill people too)
4/ every vehicle in a traffic queue is contributing to the delay caused to everyone else in the queue, so we are all wasting each other's time.
really, it is people who are the problem. maybe we should just bow out now and let the horses have a go.
Quote: SlagA @ December 6, 2007, 9:54 PMWhole theories have been hung on fabricated evidence.
Like the theory that the Labour Party are capable of Government. 
Quote: Badge @ December 7, 2007, 9:45 AMYour point wanders from evidence is used in different ways by people with different agendas (fair enough) to sometimes people fabricate evidence and use this for nefarious means. Now, call me a scientific simpleton, but I would have thought that all scientists abhor the latter but understand and scrutinise the former.
Hi Badge, the only simpleton here is me. All the people I mention weren't rogues but respected scientists who believed in something enough to frig proof, even when that belief was wrong. In the case of Haekel, after discovery the scientific community didn't abhor it but continued teaching it. In Zoology, I made drawings of the embryos and was shown what to add by my tutor. He admitted to class that the embryos didn't match what we were supposed to see but as the theory was 100% proven right then it was allowable to amend our drawings to fit the 'facts'. So no they don't always abhor fabrication.
In whatever field you work in, if you believe something is utterly right, even despite the evidence, then the line between amending conclusion and amending evidence is small and (to some) perfectly justified (e.g. the peppered moth fiasco - from Cambridge University no less). Another common technique used, if your statistical sample goes against expectation, then take smaller and smaller samples until you get the right result. Your evidence is simultaneously untampered and rigged. I was shown how to rig ("tidy up" was the euphamism used) statistical results in ecology.
Quote: Badge @ December 7, 2007, 9:45 AMIn the case of man-made climate change ... we should try to do something about it.
Totally agree. In my first post I express scepticism over global warming "as presented in the media" but not over climate change. And I said that despite my personal scepticism there are valid reasons for finding long-term alternatives, rather than going for government-driven short-term nonsense like 'green tax' because the biggest polluters, the rich, will continue polluting. Some of the reasons you mention yourself. Primary of those being: the quicker we can be independent of Middle East oil the better for us and the planet. A monopoly stranglehold in a world desperate for dwindling supplies doesn't bode well.
So I agree although the origin for my concern is not the same.
Quote: Cinnamon @ December 7, 2007, 9:29 AMNo worries, my own flit between rudeness and needs-a-spear-up-the-rectum self-righteousness.
We have common ground. I echo that myself.
Quote: Cinnamon @ December 7, 2007, 9:29 AMI had to chew my fingernails to the wrists before receiving a c grade in GCSE science, so I can hardly study climate change myself.
That's the problem. We plebs have to rely on others for our source. When that source has constantly been known to fiddle and fudge (peppered moths, Haekel, phalidomide, smoking, MMR), spout incomprehensible jargon, claim the problem is too complicated for plebs so let scientists deal with it and take the results on trust, then science becomes a modernist palatable religion of blind faith for the masses. In many cases it's blind faith for the scientist too.
A program recently had a guy say that one of the moons of Jupiter may have water but the subtext said something different. To paraphrase. "We don't know for sure but we're absolutely convinced water exists on Europa." It made me lol. He admits it's speculation but states that he chooses to believe it anyway. As the sentence's positive part is second, the lasting impression in the hearer is that water is there. But the key is the scientist's own attitude. He doesn't 'know' but his 'belief' colours his interpretation. Maybe there is water there but the principle remains: it's blind faith passed on to others as fact.
Quote: Cinnamon @ December 7, 2007, 9:29 AM"OH MY GOD! A MODERATELY SIZED WAVE OFF SCARBOROUGH! ARMAGEDDON!"
That made me laugh out loud. Loved that.
But here I agree with you. The sceptics are scientists with agendas so I fully expect them to twist the facts to their purposes as I equally expect their opponents to do likewise. This is the norm for the scientific community as it is for every other community.
Quote: Cinnamon @ December 7, 2007, 9:29 AMI'm virulently opposed to shouting down arguments against the Global Warming study, but as of yet there don't seem to have been any worth championing.
Geology's uniformitarianism principle is the one I've mentioned. Huge free carbon in the past never destroyed life on Earth. And the added bonus is if you like your bugs with six-foot wingspans then it's heaven on earth. 
Quote: Cinnamon @ December 7, 2007, 9:29 AMThere is a difference between accepting science and accepting religion. In science the evidence is there to study if one wishes.
The religious types would argue that the evidence is also there to study, and a sizeable portion of scientists have a faith, so neither are as mutually exclusive as is presumed. Accepting anything without study is blind faith, whether founded or not. In some areas, blind faith is normal. I'll sit on the chair believing it'll hold my weight. In some areas it's bad. For example Eugenics, once accepted by the scientific community, formed the basis of Arian racial theories that the Nazis used to justify their methods. Eugenics although widely accepted was found to be without justification. It was blind faith driven by a particular scientific agendum.
An interesting aside: even tho the Nazis were in power and had no need to justify what they were doing, they still felt impelled to justify their actions.
I suppose the nub of what I'm trying to say is that a belief system is founded on belief, much of it taken on trust, whether that encompases science or religion or both. The problem for mankind is working out what bits are safe to accept and what bits are going to bite us in the ass, decades down the line.
And after that superlong post, a short one.
I also recycle and turn things off a lot, like Ruby. And I'd like to echo pretty much everything Badge said above.
Now let's all go and grab a pizza. I'm ordering Hawaiian, anyone else?
Was a bit long - sorry. 
Surprisingly, I agree with Badge too, and much of Cinnamon. The points I differ on are small, imo.
I recycle too, and I do think of the baby polar bears ... and the seal cubs. I think recycling is a social responsibility. 
I don't like pizza but I'll watch you eat it through the window. 
Pervert.
Quote: Aaron @ December 7, 2007, 1:05 PMNow let's all go and grab a pizza. I'm ordering Hawaiian, anyone else?
How many air miles does a Hawaiian have?
I support the environment aswell. I don't wash regularly and never put a healthy fly down 
But there also a darker side to me that wants to be the French special forces and blow up Green Peace votes. Tres strange, non?
Boom boom.
I read some crazy statistic that, due to all of the regulations governing how meat is prepared and processed here, there's actually LESS carbon produced through buying (and of course eating) New Zealand lamb.
If that's true, I think it sums up the absurdities of the whole debate.
Quote: SlagA @ December 7, 2007, 1:14 PMWas a bit long - sorry.
Surprisingly, I agree with Badge too, and much of Cinnamon. The points I differ on are small, imo.
I recycle too, and I do think of the baby polar bears ... and the seal cubs. I think recycling is a social responsibility.
I don't like pizza but I'll watch you eat it through the window.
Well, I agree that politicians treat it as if it was a classroom exercise - "Go Green, As It's Good To Be Green...GO, GO GREENS!" I also agree that scientists have been desperately wrong, foolish and crooked in the past, but that this doesn't castigate the entire study. To use an extreme example Harold Shipman was a respected doctor and, to use a topical example, John Darwin a well liked canoeist, but their respective evil and idiocy isn't representative of their practices. Some scientist's have quite spectacularly stuffed up, but apparent beauty of the subject is that a theory can be researched and practiced and experimented and studied to pick out falws or to increased evidential proof.
Anyhoo and anyhow, I'll have a pizza. No beans on the side though, we don't want to exacerbate the planet's problems.
tsunamis, snowdrifts, tornados, floods, droughts, weeds, leaks, moss on paving slabs. the list goes on.
we need to realise that nature is mankind's greatest enemy and we should all unite to destroy it entirely. only then will we be safe.