Umber wrote:Geez, Ludi,
Why throw so many disparaging remarks DrBang's way?
efarmer wrote: I am very skeptical on the carbon trading schemes.
efarmer wrote:But it is going to be very simple, we will run low on stuff to burn.
Ludi wrote:efarmer wrote:But it is going to be very simple, we will run low on stuff to burn.
There's quite a bit of natural gas, coal, trees, crops, etc to burn. It might be quite awhile before we run low on stuff to burn, meanwhile we'll render the planet uninhabitable for humans.
Vogelzang wrote:Everyone here needs to read this article and realize that the culture of greed is working in academia and scientific research. Can you trust all scientists?
Science in Turmoil - Are we Funding Fraud? by Dr. Jeremy Dunning-Davies 26 Sep 2009: link
tomnew481 wrote:Would that give the accurate climate prediction?
The left's war on science begins with the stats cited above: 41 percent of Democrats are young Earth creationists, and 19 percent doubt that Earth is getting warmer. These numbers do not exactly bolster the common belief that liberals are the people of the science book. In addition, consider “cognitive creationists”—whom I define as those who accept the theory of evolution for the human body but not the brain. As Harvard University psychologist Steven Pinker documents in his 2002 book The Blank Slate (Viking), belief in the mind as a tabula rasa shaped almost entirely by culture has been mostly the mantra of liberal intellectuals, who in the 1980s and 1990s led an all-out assault against evolutionary psychology via such Orwellian-named far-left groups as Science for the People, for proffering the now uncontroversial idea that human thought and behavior are at least partially the result of our evolutionary past.
There is more, and recent, antiscience fare from far-left progressives, documented in the 2012 book Science Left Behind (PublicAffairs) by science journalists Alex B. Berezow and Hank Campbell, who note that “if it is true that conservatives have declared a war on science, then progressives have declared Armageddon.” On energy issues, for example, the authors contend that progressive liberals tend to be antinuclear because of the waste-disposal problem, anti–fossil fuels because of global warming, antihydroelectric because dams disrupt river ecosystems, and anti–wind power because of avian fatalities. The underlying current is “everything natural is good” and “everything unnatural is bad.”
Whereas conservatives obsess over the purity and sanctity of sex, the left's sacred values seem fixated on the environment, leading to an almost religious fervor over the purity and sanctity of air, water and especially food. Try having a conversation with a liberal progressive about GMOs—genetically modified organisms—in which the words “Monsanto” and “profit” are not dropped like syllogistic bombs. Comedian Bill Maher, for example, on his HBO Real Time show on October 19, 2012, asked Stonyfield Farm CEO Gary Hirshberg if he would rate Monsanto as a 10 (“evil”) or an 11 (“f—ing evil”)? The fact is that we've been genetically modifying organisms for 10,000 years through breeding and selection. It's the only way to feed billions of people.
Surveys show that moderate liberals and conservatives embrace science roughly equally (varying across domains), which is why scientists like E. O. Wilson and organizations like the National Center for Science Education are reaching out to moderates in both parties to rein in the extremists on evolution and climate change. Pace Barry Goldwater, extremism in the defense of liberty may not be a vice, but it is in defense of science, where facts matter more than faith—whether it comes in a religious or secular form—and where moderation in the pursuit of truth is a virtue.
Pops wrote:So my question is, how does one know if they are simply employing healthy skepticism in investigating alternate explanation for [whatever] or rather, are indulging in an ego trip fantasy that they are the real life Neo with greater insight into reality than that of mainstream science?
dohboi wrote:I think what is required is basic critical thinking skills, especially evaluation of sources.
kanon wrote:I would add that we are not as smart as we think, so all knowledge is inherently suspect and subject to revision.
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